Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life (Touchstone Book)

by Cramer, Richard Ben

  “Jesus! Meet me in the lobby.”

  “No, you come with me—I’ll only be a minute.”

  When DiMaggio pushed open the door—the Shoreham Hotel, Room 609D—all the Yankees (and their writers) were present. The coach, Art Fletcher, yelled at DiMaggio: “Where the hell you been? Why can’t you get here on time?” Joe was stunned, confused, and suddenly pink around the cheeks and temples. Fletcher led the team in the song, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” And Crosetti led a “Hip, Hip, Hooray” for Joe. The rest of the Yanks had glasses of sparkling burgundy wine, and now Johnny Murphy offered a toast:

  “Joe,” he said, “we just wanted to let you know how proud we are to be playing on a ball club with you, and that we think your hitting streak gave us the pennant we’re winning.”

  Then, from a table, Gomez picked up a package and handed it to Joe. Inside was an elegant Tiffany humidor, in silver, engraved with the signatures of every man on the team. On the lid was an engraving of Joe D. swinging a bat, flanked by the numbers 56 (for the games of The Streak) and 91 (for the number of hits). And on the front, there was an inscription: “Presented to Joe DiMaggio by his fellow players on the New York Yankees to express their admiration for his consecutive game hitting record, 1941.”

  Joe was lost for words: “This is swell, fellows,” he said. “Only, I don’t deserve it.” Then he went around the room, with a little grin: “Cigars? Cigarettes? . . .” Everybody could see, Joe was blushing. “I think he cried,” Henrich remembered, “ . . . and said something I’ll never forget: ‘I didn’t know you guys felt this way about me.’ Here was the greatest player in the game on this incredible streak and helping us win again and again and he didn’t think we cared that much about him.”

  That must have been what Joe was trying to say in his own version of the story, in Lucky to Be a Yankee: “It’s nice to know that the guys you work with think you’re a regular guy, too.”

  In the end, it proved to Joe that if he took care of business—took care of it his way—on his back alone . . . then he would be admired. As Joe saw it: he did his job. He’d won. And he wasn’t done yet.

  The last month of the season, the Yankees were only marking time (they’d win their pennant by seventeen games). The spotlight turned to Ted Williams, who was fighting to finish with a .400 average. No one had pulled that off for more than ten years—and no one would even come close for the rest of the century. On the last day of the season, Ted went into action with a batting average of .3995. That would have been rounded up to .400 if Ted had taken his skipper’s offer to sit the last day out. But he didn’t—wouldn’t coast to the record: he played a doubleheader against the A’s, went six-for-eight on the day, and finished at a gaudy .406.

  Still, in the ballot for the MVP, the nod went to Joe DiMaggio. Ted’s reaction was characteristically generous. “Yeah, awright,” he said. “But it took the Big Guy to beat me!” Joe’s reaction was characteristic, too: in public, he gave bland thanks to the MVP voters, his teammates, and his manager. In private, with his pals, Joe said of Williams: “Sure, he can hit. But he never won a thing.”

  The World Series that year was a feverish New York affair: the first time the Brooklyns ever had a chance to win the brass ring. But they would have to pry it loose from DiMaggio’s fist. The Dodgers had the Yanks tied at one game apiece, when the action shifted to Ebbets Field. In Game Three, the Dodger pitchers held the Yanks scoreless into the eighth—until DiMaggio broke up the shutout, knocked in Red Rolfe with a single, to put the Yanks in the lead. As it turned out, one run would make the difference—the Yanks would win (and lead the Series) 2–1.

  The most famous play, and the turning point of the Series, occurred the next day, in Game Four, with the Dodgers leading 4–3. The Yankees were down to their final out, as Tommy Henrich stood in against the Brooklyn fireman, Hugh Casey. On a three-and-two count, Henrich swung and missed for strike three—but then the ball slipped by the Dodger catcher, Mickey Owen. Henrich sprinted up the baseline, Owen scrambled after the ball, but Henrich ended safely on first base. Police now stood at the edge of the grass: they’d thought the game was over, and they’d rushed out to protect the field. Now DiMaggio strode to the plate, and the Brooklyn crowd keened with something like a wail of dread. DiMaggio lined a single to left; Henrich stopped at second, DiMaggio on first. The next batter, Keller, launched a high fly that bounced off the chain link screen, atop the concrete right field wall. The Brooklyn right fielder, Dixie Walker, ran into position to field the carom, but the carom didn’t come—until the ball had dropped straight down and bounced off the flat top of the concrete. Meanwhile, Henrich scored easily from second base . . . and DiMaggio, as the winning run, now roared around third, dirt flying from under his spikes. As Henrich remembered:

  “I’ve already scored. I’m standing there watching Joe comin’ in. And he slid, he hit home plate—and I think his body, I think his body went by six feet past home plate! That was the speed of him. In other words, ‘I WILL SCORE ON THIS PLAY.’ . . . But, that’s the way he played ball.”

  That was the run that broke Brooklyn’s heart. Game Four ended as a 7–4 Yankee triumph. The next day, Brooklyn couldn’t even make much noise as they bowed in the clincher 3–1. The Bombers were champions again. In their clubhouse, the third base coach, Art Fletcher, led the boozy anthem: “Roll Out the Barrel.” The only time they sang it was for World Series wins—but still, with practice in five out of six years, they were starting to sound good. DiMaggio didn’t sing, just sat on his stool, smoking and watching with a little smile. It was different for them, the rest of the guys: they’d all go home (even Lefty was leaving town) to do whatever they wanted with that extra six grand in their pockets . . . and they’d have a big time all winter. Joe, for his part, wasn’t looking forward to that winter at all.

  He’d be stuck in New York while he (and all the writers) waited for Dorothy to have the baby. He’d be left alone in the fishbowl. The way he said it was, he couldn’t go home at all.

  Sure, he had his New York apartment. But that was her place. And not exactly peaceful. That penthouse was all very nice—it was beautiful—but he had no idea how to make himself at home. Heading into that winter, into fatherhood and his twenty-seventh birthday, Joe DiMaggio was ulcerated, smoking too much, coffee-jangled, and sleepless.

  He had legions of would-be pals, he was the idol of millions. But save for the coterie at Shor’s, he was friendless. Of course, he couldn’t go out alone, either. He’d have a million fans on him all night . . . . He was the most famous man in America, a man at every moment watched. But there was so much about his life that he didn’t want anybody to see.

  JOE’S BACK IN LOVE—AND OFF TO THE WAR.

  JOE AND JOE JR., 1943.

  WITH THE SEVENTH ARMY AIR FORCE, HONOLULU, 1944.

  CHAPTER 10

  ON OCTOBER 23, 1941, JOE DIMAGGIO CAME INTO TOOTS Shor’s saloon to hand out cigars. Joe DiMaggio, Jr., had arrived. The fellows said they’d never seen Daig so happy. There were a lot of pals in the joint who wanted to buy a round, raise a toast. “Hey, Joe! You’re one-for-one—he’ll be a slugger, too!” So, Joe stayed for a belt with the boys. Mother and son were in the hospital, everybody was fine.

  Actually, Dorothy wasn’t fine. She’d asked a half-dozen times, but they wouldn’t bring the baby to her. “I want to see him right now,” she demanded. “He’s my baby, not yours.” As Dorothy recounted the story to her family, a nurse brought the infant, completely hidden in a swaddling blanket—and carefully unwrapped the baby’s head and face. Dorothy was panicked. There were angry red marks on his face and head, like big strawberries. “Mrs. DiMaggio, you required a high forceps delivery, and this is a condition that sometimes develops.” They assured her the sores wouldn’t stay, wouldn’t scar. But alone in that room, Dorothy was still scared. She wanted Joe to tell her it was all right. But Joe was tied up.

  “A child was born today at the Doctors Hospital,” the Journal American reporte
d, “—a possible future president, clerk or another Joe DiMaggio. Joe was a little excited when he announced it . . . far more excited, in fact, than he was this year when he broke the consecutive hitting records of all time. Weighed 7 pounds, 11 ounces.”

  In time, Dorothy would come to see this as a pattern: the baby was a feather in Joe’s cap, and her problem to deal with. Assuredly this was the year’s most publicized baby. All the papers had to have pictures. Sometimes, they’d wrap the baby’s tiny hand around a tiny bat, and they’d take a picture of Junior, asprawl in the crook of Dad’s arm, with the bat propped up next to his lolling head.

  The old San Francisco sportswriter Abe Kemp wrote a column naming Little Joe as “the most photographed child in the United States.” As Kemp also noted:

  “In some pictures, Dorothy wears a wistful smile, as much as to say, ‘Here you, that is as much my baby as Joe’s.’

  “Somehow, the camera men do not seem to think so.

  “It is always Joe who is holding the child.

  “It is always Joe who is showing the little tyke how to hold a baseball bat . . . .

  “It is always Joe who is pinning the diapers on the baby.”

  When the cameras weren’t present, the Yankee Clipper wasn’t as enamored of child care. He would ask in perplexity, and some annoyance: “When he’s changed and fed and he still cries—what do you do, Dottie?” When the baby was fussy, Joe would get annoyed at her. Mostly he’d stay out of the apartment. He didn’t want to get in the way, and it was impossible to relax there.

  At Shor’s he’d always find his crowd, men who knew how to keep him company. Joe was funny that way: he was such a solitary person—fundamentally alone, no matter who was around—but he always wanted somebody with him. In part it was a habit of self-protection. If he looked to be alone people were emboldened to approach, to engage him. But if he seemed to be with someone, people were more likely to leave him alone. So Joe would be shown to his table, the one with banquettes in the front right-hand corner of the dining room. From that position, he could see everybody who came in. Better still, no matter who came at him in that corner, the table would obtrude between them and Joe. No one could ever get behind him.

  No one who meant to bother Joe could even get near. Toots and his staff would see to that. But those acceptable to the Clipper could stop by his table to pay respects. Joe might be sitting with his old pal, the ex-champ Jim Braddock. And, of course, Toots would spend time in that corner. And some of Shor’s writer pals might sit down to tell a story or two. Bob Considine would be welcome, as would Granny Rice, Frank Graham—they were name players—or Toots’s guy, Ernie Hemingway, who was so big in the novel racket. (You had to respect a champion.)

  But the writer who got closest, and became Joe’s hang-around buddy, was the bard of the New York tenements, Jimmy Cannon. Cannon was the most writerly columnist in New York, a star attraction in the New York Post. But his friendship with DiMaggio was based on simpler things. Cannon was a bachelor who lived in hotels—never had to run home to someone else. Joe never wanted to go home, either. And if he met a broad somewhere, Cannon’s hotel suite could come in handy. Cannon was on the wagon, a coffee drinker like Joe. Neither one could sleep, and they’d stay together through the wee hours while the rest of the guys faded off to their beds. Sometimes they’d hook up with the city’s best known insomniac and the nation’s most famous columnist, Walter Winchell. The three men would ride around the sleeping city in Winchell’s car, with its police radio, chasing after murders and muggings. Winchell was glad of the company, glad to be the majordomo at the wheel, and especially glad if it brought him a Yankee Clipper item for his column—anything on DiMaggio was worth a few lines.

  Cannon also found in DiMaggio his perfect subject: he idolized DiMaggio, a natural hero of innate grace, raised up (as was Cannon) from poor city streets. This was a patented Cannon story, the tough-guy romance he wrote over and over: the poor kid who became a king, the unlettered man who knew more than professors, the eloquence of the city’s silent souls. It was as if DiMaggio was put on the planet, and brought to New York, to confirm Jimmy Cannon’s beliefs about the world. But Cannon was cautious and sparing with DiMaggio columns. He understood right away: if Joe got the idea that Cannon was reaping advantage from the friendship, then that would be his last night with the Dago. Jimmy would go a long way to avoid that. He worked at being Joe’s perfect companion: funny, irreverent, irrepressibly talkative; and at the same time careful never to repeat anything Joe said.

  In some ways Cannon was like a lot of guys Joe went around with: short, stubby, not much to look at. But Cannon (you had to hand it to him) had style. It started with those black-Irish bushy eyebrows, and then the glasses, the wide-brimmed hats, the plaid jackets, striped ties, and fancy fifty-dollar shoes. He was a clothes horse, like DiMag, but without the Dago’s restraint. Sometimes it looked like Cannon was trying to wear as many clothes as he could. Sometimes his writing was the same way: Cannon had a bursting wardrobe of words; in supply and quality they were splendid. But at times, he’d pile up so many, you couldn’t appreciate a single one before it was buried under fifty more.

  Still, he was so quick-witted that talking to him in a barroom was just as good as reading him. He had the gift of the great line that seemed to spring spontaneously from him. For example, Toots Shor’s food had suffered sallies from a lot of comedians. (One was Shor, who described his own kitchen rule: “Buy the best of everything, and let the help try to spoil it.”) Jackie Gleason used to sit down at one of Shor’s tables and command the waiter to bring a phone—so he could order in pizza. But the classic on the subject came from Cannon, who was eating at Shor’s when the lights flickered out for a moment. In the sudden silence, Cannon’s voice echoed solemnly around the room: “They electrocuted the cook.”

  Joe’s other new companion was a wit as well, though underappreciated by the world at large. George Solotaire was well known on Broadway as a ticket broker—proprietor of the Adelphi Theatre Ticket Service—and counted among his clients millionaires and nabobs of national renown. He once obtained for J. P. Morgan the same ticket to the same show, in the same seat, for seven successive Saturday nights, when the tycoon went sweet on a girl in the chorus line. But even more impressive, Gentleman George was ticket-broker-enough to supply all the freebies Toots Shor threw around. All of Shor’s pals, pals of pals, and the families of pals could call Toots anytime and say what show they would like to see, and Toots would have their ducats waiting when they came in for a belt or a snack on the way to the theater. Solotaire handled all that in a friendly way—same way he turned tickets into envelopes stuffed with cash for a player like Joe DiMaggio, who might otherwise end up with too many seats for the World Series.

  For DiMag, Solotaire would do anything at all—run out to get him a sandwich, pick up his suits at the tailor, sit with him all night. George had been married for years; had a home, family, and everything—but no one knew it: he always kept a place in a midtown hotel, too. Of course, Dago was welcome there, anytime. After half a lifetime in and around show business, Solotaire had other famous friends. But for Georgie, the Dago was more than a pal—he was a devotion. One time at the Stadium, when fans stood up and craned their necks to see Clark Gable leaving his seat, the faithful Solotaire was enraged. As one columnist reported the scene: “He wagged furiously toward the Yankee outfield. ‘If you want to see a real star,’ George bellowed at the crowd, ‘look out in center field. That’s a REAL star—Joe DiMaggio!’ ”

  In a way, stardom was Solotaire’s business: it was the ticket broker’s root skill to know what (or whom) the public would want to see, in what numbers, and for how long. (Only thus could he estimate how many tickets to stock, and for how many weeks or months in the future.) On Broadway productions, George was uncanny: he could predict, almost to the day, how long a play would run. He was right so often, The Hollywood Reporter started printing Solotaire’s capsule reviews—usually a rhymed couplet, which G
eorgie composed in his theater seat, while the play ran, opening night. For example, when his friend Ethel Merman opened in her latest musical—a particularly weak excuse for a play—Georgie struck a nice balance with his instant review:

  The show’s infirm.

  But it’s still got the Merm.

  But even with his growing fame as a poet, Solotaire’s wit was still undervalued. He was, for example, the inventor of one locution that entered the American language—the ville school of description. A pair of lovers who fought and broke up were, according to George, “splitsville,” or at least no longer “living in lovesville.” A show that fell apart after the first act, in Georgie’s view, “went to dullsville.” And where was that play going at the box office? “Nowheresville,” of course. He also had his own system for discussing the delicate subject of age. Say a man was approaching (as was George) his fortieth birthday. In Solotairese, he was “almost at the Metropolitan Opera.” (The Met was at 40th Street.) Seventeen years later, that man might or might not admit that he was about to turn fifty-seven. But Georgie would be sure to say, that fellow was “pushin’ Carnegie Hall.” Solotaire would never say his tickets were in Row G. No, he was “sitting with Gladys.” Or perhaps one row closer to the stage: i.e., “with Freddie.” No wonder Walter Winchell “borrowed” for his column George’s “splits-ville,” “dullsville,” etc. Half of George’s friends talked just like him. His delight was contagious.

  That was the gift that brought him to Broadway. When Georgie got you tickets, it was as if he’d invited you to a party. The great drama critic Walter Kerr once wrote about the way Solotaire would materialize on some theater sidewalk, just as the intermission crowd burst forth. There was George scanning the faces of the ticket holders with a small smile of complicitous delight. As Kerr described it: “a bright, wistful smile, as if to say, ‘It’s another good one, isn’t it?’ I never knew a knowing man to be so cheerful.” . . . That was the smile Georgie wore as he followed Joe, or Joe and Dorothy into a restaurant, a nightclub. All the other customers would be nudging one another, whispering, “That’s DiMaggio! DiMaggio and his missus!” Joe played it like he didn’t hear a thing. Dorothy was learning to act that way, too. But George would confirm with that little smile: Yes! Here he is—isn’t it exciting?