The DiMaggios

by Tom Clavin

  The phone woke him at the Beach Street house early the next morning. Marilyn had been found dead in her bed.

  Joe flew to L.A. immediately. At the morgue, he identified the body. He realized that if he hadn’t been talked into attending that reunion in San Francisco, he would have been with her. He sent a telegram to Marilyn’s sister asking permission to handle the funeral. He would take care of his wife one last time.

  The funeral was held at Westwood Memorial Park. On the afternoon of August 8, accompanied by Joe Jr., who was now 20, Joe buried Marilyn instead of marrying her. He had arranged it so that none of her Hollywood crowd or members of the Kennedy family were allowed to participate. When their complaints were relayed to him, Joe rasped, “Tell them if it wasn’t for them, she’d still be here.” Later, Joe instructed that fresh flowers be placed on Marilyn’s grave “forever.”

  “Dom was always ready to comfort and support Joe, but right after Marilyn’s death, Joe wanted to be left alone,” Emily Sr. says. “He wanted the funeral to be very private, so even family on the West Coast did not attend, respecting his wishes.”

  For the rest of his life, Joe would never talk about Marilyn or allow her name to be mentioned in his presence. Dick Flavin recalls being the emcee at a fund-raising event organized by Emily that Joe attended. When Flavin said he had a story to tell the audience about Joe, a member called out, “Is it about Marilyn?” Flavin recalls, “Joe just stared down into his plate the rest of the night. It was like the air got sucked out of him.”

  While Joe was more private than ever as he carried the pain of Marilyn’s death, he was not a recluse. He continued to play golf through the 1950s and ’60s, before age and the aches of old injuries interfered with that pastime. The Presidio in San Francisco was a favorite course, and one of his regular partners was Louis Almada, who had played in the Pacific Coast League in the 1950s. “I could outdrive him a hundred yards,” Almada told David Cataneo for I Remember Joe DiMaggio. “Joe just wanted to hit it straight, so he hit the ball easy. He just wasn’t a natural golfer the way he was a natural, great ballplayer.” Even when Joe asked for advice about a putt, “I wouldn’t ever tell him how to play it. Because if it went wrong, he wouldn’t talk to you for the rest of the game.” After the round, Almada and any other playing partners “would sit down to have a bite or have a beer. Joe would just come in and not even say, ‘See you fellas later. Good-bye.’ He’d just come in and look at everybody there and just walk away.”

  When Joe turned 50 in November 1964, over 1,100 people packed into the Sheraton Palace Hotel in San Francisco to celebrate the milestone. Yankees broadcaster Mel Allen was the toastmaster, and among the salutes he read was a telegram from President Lyndon Johnson. People would have crowded the speakers’ table anyway with Joe sitting at it, but what made this night special was that he was flanked by Tom, Vince, and Dominic, as well as Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Lefty Gomez, and Lefty O’Doul, who received a huge ovation when he was introduced. Hands tired quickly with all the autograph requests.

  When it was his turn to speak, Joe stood and offered what for him was a Shakespearean soliloquy: “This night I shall always remember. I feel humble at the sight of this tremendous turnout and am also deeply grateful to those who traveled great distances to share this night with me. It’s wonderful. It’s heartwarming. How can I ever thank you? I’m proud to have been a Yankee, but I have found more happiness and contentment since I came back home to San Francisco than any man has a right to deserve. This is the friendliest city in the world.”

  Even there, though, it could be difficult to guard his privacy. A brilliant profile written by Gay Talese and published in the July 1966 issue of Esquire, titled “The Silent Season of a Hero,” opened with Joe observing a young blond woman from the second-floor window of DiMaggio’s Grotto. “He watched until she left, lost in the crowd of newly arrived tourists that had just come down the hill by cable car. Then he sat down again at the table in the restaurant, finishing his tea and lighting another cigarette, his fifth in the last half hour.” Joe was nervous because “in the crowd was a man he did not wish to see,” a man he suspected was a reporter or a memorabilia collector seeking an autograph.

  “Sometimes tourists will walk into the restaurant and have lunch and see him sitting calmly in a corner signing autographs and being extremely gracious with everyone. At other times, as on this particular morning when the man from New York chose to visit, DiMaggio was tense and suspicious.” When the man arrived, a nephew tried unsuccessfully to shoo him away. Finally, Joe confronted him. The man said he didn’t want to cause trouble and he thought that Joe was a great man. “I’m not great,” Joe replied softly. “I’m just a man trying to get along.”

  Joe was most comfortable at home on Beach Street, with his ever-doting sister Marie; in Massachusetts (and later Florida too) with Dominic and Emily; and at the restaurant at Fisherman’s Wharf, with longtime male acquaintances. “They may wait for hours sometimes,” Talese wrote, “ . . . know[ing] that when he arrives he may wish to be alone; but it does not seem to matter, they are endlessly awed by him, moved by the mystique, he is a kind of male Garbo.”

  Although he was never comfortable in public and was usually cold when approached by strangers, it was only in his last decade that Joe became completely intolerant of others. Until then, into the mid-1980s, Joe stayed in the news through special events, pitching products, and, still, baseball. In 1968 Paul Simon composed the song “Mrs. Robinson,” which contained the enduring lyric, “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.”

  When he was 53, he agreed to become a vice president and coach with the Oakland Athletics, his first regular-season on-field baseball job since retiring from the Yankees in 1951. He traveled with the club when it suited him, went to spring trainings, and was a hitting consultant. When that job ended, he was welcomed back at the Yankees camp every spring, and he was the most popular attraction at the Old Timers’ Days at Yankee Stadium. He insisted on being the last of the retired Yankees to be introduced—though in the 1970s and into the ’80s Mantle was the more popular Yankee among a younger fan base—and on being described as the “greatest living player.” Baseball writers had voted to give him that designation in 1969, and he wore it as a badge of honor. Not Mantle, not Mays, not Musial, and not Williams—the Big Guy would be the greatest as long as he breathed.

  It helped him maintain his distance from others. “Joe was so aloof, you couldn’t really get to him,” says fellow Hall of Famer and Mets broadcaster Ralph Kiner. “He always had a gofer with him, some guy on hand to send on errands and look out for him. Joe always sat alone. We’d play in golf tournaments together, and he liked me for some reason, so that was nice. At any event, though, he always had to be the man. He had to be the last guy announced, even at Shea Stadium. Not sure if this makes sense, but Joe did not want the glare, but he did want the glory.”

  Joe had lucrative contracts with Bowery Savings Bank in New York and for national promotion of Mr. Coffee machines, and both enjoyed very successful campaigns with him as pitchman. When articles appeared about him, he was always described as distinguished, perfectly dressed, tan, fit, and trim. Pat Harmon, covering a charity golf tournament in Florida, wrote, “Joe is handsome, quiet, and modest. He is everything a hero should be.” When Joe retreated from the public eye, he went home to San Francisco and took a spin on the 36-foot Yankee Clipper.

  “DiMaggio had the good fortune to age well,” writes Lawrence Baldassaro. “A full head of silver hair atop his still trim physique made him look distinguished rather than elderly. His good looks and his baseball fame opened the door to a lucrative second career as a television spokesman. He became a television celebrity to an entire generation that had never seen him play baseball.”

  Over the years, there was less time for Vince, who seemed to have gone off in a different direction. Joe’s most enduring family relationships were wit
h Marie and Dominic, on either coast. Whenever he was in San Francisco, he shared the house on Beach Street with his sister. On the East Coast, he saw his younger brother in New York or quietly visited him and Emily in Marion, across Buzzard’s Bay from Cape Cod, where they had moved from Wellesley.

  “One time I stayed overnight there, and there was another house guest,” remembers Flavin. “Joe had come to play in the annual charity golf tournament that Dom and Emily organized.” Flavin was master of ceremonies for the tournament. “I had a ‘pinch me am I really here’ feeling as I spent a good part of the morning in the kitchen with the two of them as they drank coffee and talked baseball. Joe was always open and friendly with me because I was Dom’s friend, and he knew I was not a threat to use him or try to get close to him. If Dom said you were okay, you were okay with Joe.”

  In 1969 Dominic, Vince, and Joe had to say good-bye to an old friend. On December 7, the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Lefty O’Doul, the man who almost single-handedly popularized baseball in Japan, died from a stroke, at 72. He had last managed the Seattle Rainiers in the Pacific Coast League, and by the time he retired to concentrate on golf (often with Joe), he had compiled a 2,094-1,970 record. Few men had been more popular in San Francisco. His restaurant on Geary Street (where Lefty’s original Bloody Mary recipe is still served) was a favorite hangout for athletes and fans. Dominic lost a paternal figure who had saved his career. Twelve years after his death, when O’Doul was inducted into the San Francisco Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame, Dominic was the DiMaggio brother selected to present the award to O’Doul’s family.

  With business going strong—his company was grossing in the millions—Dominic could continue to be involved in the Red Sox. He still headed the Bosox Club, which was the most successful in the major leagues; the way it boosted attendance and fan participation was now being imitated by other teams. In 1970 Dominic proposed that there be interleague play to further spur interest in baseball, an idea that club owners thought was daft. Dabbling in politics, in 1976 he was named co-chair of Citizens for Ford, a group of Republicans and Democrats who supported the election of President Gerald Ford.

  In July 1970, Tom Yawkey died, and his wife, Jean, became president of the trust that operated the Bosox franchise, which was put up for sale. Dominic made an offer. Jean Yawkey asked for time, and out of respect for her loss, he waited. Next thing he knew, a new ownership group, headed by the widow, was being introduced. It was also reported that when Jean Yawkey was asked about selling the team to Dominic, she replied, “Over my dead body.”

  “Dom was livid,” says Flavin. “The statement that the team had been for sale was a sham. He not only had been used, he had spent considerable money putting together his team and the financing only to discover the Red Sox were not really for sale after all. He and Mrs. Yawkey stopped speaking, and he also stopped going to games or to spring training, where he had been an unpaid adviser to the players.”

  “He went into a shell after that,” says Ted Lepcio, one of several Red Sox players who remained friends with Dominic. “He said literally, screw you guys, and you didn’t hear from him for a long time. He divorced himself from the whole organization.”

  Dominic returned to family, philanthropy with Emily, and his business as top priorities. In family matters, he cast a wider net, becoming the liaison for the expanding clan. Elaine Brooks had married Donald DiMaggio, a second cousin to the DiMaggio brothers. When she was pregnant with her first child, she met Dominic at the funeral of a relative of her husband’s; he was the only one of the four brothers to attend. “We had a lovely time talking, and I was very impressed with him,” recalls Brooks, now remarried and living in Arkansas. “He had a ‘head of the family’ air about him. As we’re all leaving he said, ‘If you have a boy, will you name him after me?’ I told him I sure would.” A month later, Brooks learned she was to have twins. “As long as one was a boy, Dominic was the name. After my son was born, I called to tell him about the new Dominic DiMaggio. He was thrilled. We received cards from him and Emily for years after that.”

  Dominic would always be there for family events. Nieces and nephews and other relatives often wanted a word with him, to talk about business or baseball. Just a few minutes with Dominic made them feel better. “Everyone in the family always turned to Dad,” his daughter says. “They all adored him and held him in the highest respect. Being his only daughter and attending Stanford, I was treated like royalty by Tom, Vince, and Joe as well as Marie when I visited my grandparents’ house. It was filial love through and through.”

  Sadly, family matters also included making cross-country trips to arrange and attend the funerals of siblings. In September 1980, Tom died at age 75. Dominic would now run the family businesses in San Francisco from his company’s headquarters in Massachusetts. Next to pass was Frances, the following year, at 70. Nelly, the only child of Rosalie and Giuseppe born in Isola delle Femmine, died at 84 in 1983. Now Dominic had Mamie, Marie, Vince, and Joe left.

  He continued to steer clear of the Red Sox for years, a painful self-exile that included refusing invitations to Old-Timers’ Games at Fenway Park. That ended in 1984. “At Joe Cronin’s funeral, Dom saw Mrs. Yawkey standing outside of the church,” Flavin says. “He approached her and said, ‘Jean, life is too short to go on this way.’ She threw her arms around him in thanks for forgiving her and relations with the team were restored.” He would accept the invitation to the May 1986 game and be in a Red Sox uniform with Ted, Doerr, Pesky, and his brothers once again.

  Adapting the Paul Simon lyric, Edward Kiersh set off in the early 1980s to interview former major leaguers for a book titled Where Have You Gone, Vince DiMaggio? Some of the players were content with their lives, some had fallen on hard times, and some had found themselves in unusual circumstances, like baking doughnuts or whipping up clam chowder.

  Kiersh found Vince to be “a quiet man content to live in the shadows of a legend, who at seventy-one [sic] is a Fuller Brush salesman in Los Angeles. Though a competent, .249 lifetime-hitting outfielder, he never enjoyed any fame, or the riches that usually go with it.” The author also reported that Vince “often leaves work early to go fishing, tend to his garden, or to study the Bible in pursuit of ‘the higher league.’ Insisting that he’s found inner peace, only one thing disturbs him. Except for a phone call every six months, or a fleeting glimpse of his brother on TV, Vince, like the rest of us, has been forced to wonder, ‘Where have you gone, Joe D.?’ ”

  Considering that this is the chapter that gave the book its title, Kiersh’s interview with Vince is surprisingly brief and not especially insightful. But one quote caught readers’ and his brothers’ attention: “Joe’s always been a loner, and he always will be. When the folks were alive we were a lot closer. But I guess in the last four years I’ve seen him two or three times. What can I do, I’m Vince, and he’s Joe. He’s always had a living style higher than mine, or higher than I cared to live. It’s only a shame that we have gone such different ways. That’s real sad. Family should stick together.”

  Dominic winced when he read it. He knew that it would not inspire Joe to pay more attention to his older brother—probably the opposite. As usual, Dominic was right.

  Vince had one final comment: “The only pressure of being a DiMaggio was trying to convince people that I wasn’t Joe. I’ve tried not to use it to get my foot in the front door. I want to do things on my own. But I guess no matter what I do, I’ll always be under Joe’s shadow. He was one hell of a star, and I was just an ordinary star.” The book did prompt a few reporters to seek Vince out for “Whatever Happened to . . .” features. Dave Larsen of the Los Angeles Times found him “within a modest house on a quiet street,” still in North Hollywood, “a gray-haired man who turned 70 a few months ago. He spends his time tending his backyard camellias, reading his Bibles, supplementing his Social Security by selling Fuller Brush products.” His two distinctions, Larsen wrot
e, were that Vince had established the 134-strikeout single-season record and that he was the “forgotten DiMaggio.”

  In this interview, Vince came across as genial and contented. He told the story of getting Joe the job with the San Francisco Seals, and how Casey Stengel had called him when he thought his professional career was over. He described his Fuller Brush tasks, and Larsen wrote, “Spring training is upon us again. Vince DiMaggio wonders if he will have a good year selling brushes.” It didn’t seem to faze Vince that he was a DiMaggio yet still went door to door selling cleaning products to make a living.

  Larsen observed about the DiMaggios, “An outsider gets the feeling it isn’t a very close-knit family. Vince said he almost never sees Dom, that Joe is mostly on the road and that an occasional letter from a sister, Marie, who lives in Joe’s house in San Francisco, is just about the only source of news.”

  Vince was still a Fuller Brush salesman up to the time he became ill with cancer, at 73. He had to have suspected something was seriously wrong, something God wouldn’t take care of for him.

  After the tests in Boston confirmed what Vince had been told, it would be left to Dominic to tell Joe that Vince was dying. The greatest living ballplayer could do nothing about it except, when the time came, attend his trailblazing brother’s funeral.

  As the 1986 Old-Timers’ Day at Fenway Park approached, Vince kept changing his mind about going. He was finally persuaded to go by Dominic and the prospect of seeing his two surviving brothers. And there was another reason.

  “He always loved the fans and was grateful to them,” Joanne DiMaggio Webber says. “He played hard to not disappoint them. I remember one Sunday—he died the following Friday—a man and his son came to the door to see him and get an autograph. I told them my father, who was lying down, was too sick. Then I heard him say, ‘Oh no, it’s okay.’ He got up and invited them in, having no idea who they were. He put on a Red Sox cap that Dominic gave him at the reunion. I took a picture of the three of them as they talked baseball. Here’s a man who could barely make it to the bathroom, and he would have sung for them too if he could.”