Most of the big-time players were going: Ruffing, Judnich, Lodigiani, McCormick, were now joined on the Army Air Force squad by a good young catcher (another future Pinstriper), Charlie Silvera, along with a fine AL infield: the A’s Ferris Fain at first base, Joe Gordon of the Yankees at second, and the Browns’ Bob Dillinger at third. The Navy team that would serve as their main competition was also loaded with stars, including the Cardinals’ Big Cat (and All-Star) first baseman, Johnny Mize, and Brooklyn’s young Harold Henry Reese at short. Most of the fellows would sail together from Seattle, June 6, 1944. For any U.S. serviceman embarking on that fateful morning—D-Day at the beaches of Normandy—Hawaii didn’t seem a bad destination. But DiMaggio wasn’t in a mood to enjoy the voyage. Every day he was on that ship, for as long as he had to stay in Hawaii—for that matter, any day he was out of reach, out of contact with Dorothy—he was losing time, money, and hope. He was farther and farther from the life he wanted—the life he used to have.
The other guys acted like this voyage was a floating party, another big road trip. One of the brass gave DiMaggio a case of scotch to ease his sojourn in the islands. But Joe knew he’d never get it off the ship and onto the base without being discovered. So he broke up the case and gave each player a couple of bottles to bring ashore. By the time he asked for his scotch in Hawaii, there wasn’t a single bottle left.
When their ship steamed into Pearl Harbor, they were taken from the gangplank directly to Honolulu Stadium, where almost twenty thousand fans were waiting. The guys from the boat were stumbling around on their sealegs, but that didn’t matter. The pitcher and catcher were Eddie Stutz and Neil Clifford from the Seals. So they had to take care of their club’s most famous alum. When Joe came to the plate, Clifford muttered: “Let’s see how far you can hit one.” And they grooved him a fastball that DiMaggio hit half a mile, over the left field fence, over the left field bleachers, out to the street that bordered the ballpark, where the ball almost killed a Honolulu homeowner who was reading his paper on the front stoop. Of course, the place went crazy; fans and players alike would remember the moment for the rest of their lives. But to Joe it was another testament: he was the best in the business; his time, his prime, was being squandered.
On the whole, you couldn’t have a better war. The general was Brigadier William J. Flood, a terrific fan who spared his stars all the normal Army tedium. There was a beach for the Seventh Army Air Force, supposed to be R&R for the fliers. But the ballplayers had privileges, too. So, they’d play a game, or they’d work out at McClellan Field, then they’d loll in the sand and surf, get a tan, drink some beer, tell some lies. When the boys were properly toasted, or on those rare days when the weather wasn’t postcard-perfect, they might hang around their Quonset huts playing cards. Joe spent most of his time playing pinochle for money. Either that or he was off to himself, on his cot, thinking about Dorothy . . . . What was she doing now?
It was torture knowing Dorothy had moved back to New York, not just because that was so far away. It seemed like she had his old life (with his money) and he did not. How the hell was he going to get back there and talk to her, see the boy? . . . Or what if she met someone else? Of course, she would! There’d be a million guys after her—the lucky ones, still at home. . . . It was only a couple of months before Joe was checked into the hospital—an acute attack of the ulcers.
That was his war, to live in the loss that he couldn’t change—to swallow his failure. No wonder his stomach was on fire. He’d lie in a hospital bed for a week or two, reading comics, listening to the radio. Then, he’d think he was going to go crazy; he’d say his stomach felt better. He’d rejoin the team, suit up, take some BP, and play again. Half the time, some newsreel crew would show up, or the Army cameramen: How do you like playing for Uncle Sam, Joe? . . . “Well, it’s fine,” Joe would say. “I don’t mind it at all.”
But what was the point? The only difference when they won was the Army brass would rake in their bets from the Navy brass. Big deal! Joe didn’t bet. Sometimes the Army stars would whip up on some hapless Hawaiian minor leaguers, 12–2 or 14–1. That was even more pointless—and unfair—it burned Joe up. Those bush leaguers were getting paid for this—and what was he getting? Fifty a month!
Dario Lodigiani recalled: “One night, we’re lyin’ around on the cots and DiMaggio says, ‘Somebody’s gonna pay me for all this time I lost.’
“I said, ‘Well, Joe, the GI Bill of Rights says you get your job back, same pay and everything.’
“ ‘The hell with the same,’ he says. ‘They’re gonna pay me. I’m gonna get a twenty-five-thousand-dollar raise.’
“I said, ‘Good night! Twenty-five thousand, that’s a lot of money, Joe.’
“ ‘Cost me three years. They’re gonna pay for it.’ ”
There wasn’t anybody else in that unit who hated his war like DiMaggio. They all had the feeling, it could have been worse. They’d win a big game, they’d get a pass; screw around for the night in Honolulu. One time, after a game, a dance was arranged for them. But DiMaggio didn’t dance. As Jack B. Moore reported in Joe DiMaggio: A Bio-bibliography, “Instead, he reportedly sat in a car ‘a couple of hours’ by himself.”
The main battle hazard was probably cirrhosis. Ruffing, for one, was in the bag from the moment he arrived. He flew in late on an Army transport—stinko already. Every man was supposed to have a canteen of water on his hip, but Ruffing’s canteen had vodka and grape juice.
Most of the players would hang around with Bill Whaley—he’d played for the Angels. Now he was manager of the Primo Brewery in Honolulu. Guys would sneak off the base with an ambulance and go to Whaley’s house after dark. They’d chugalug Primo Beer all night. You’d tip up a bottle, and everyone would count—one, two, three, four . . . the game was to see who was the fastest. Then after everyone was drooling drunk, they’d ride back to the base (guards would never question an ambulance), and straight through to their bunk. Ruffing was in a chair at Whaley’s one night, chugging Primo as fast as he could go. People told him to slow down, but Ruffing was indignant: “Don’t you bastards tell me how to drink!” Then he knocked one back—chug, chug, chug—his head tipped back and back and back, until he went flat backward, chair and all, over and out. They carried him to the ambulance. And he was a big guy—took five of them to heft him onto his bunk. Next day, they’re up for the workout, but no Red. They found him in the hospital in the bed right next to DiMaggio.
Joe was in and out of that hospital like one of those new yo-yo toys. He couldn’t stay out and he couldn’t stay in. And he couldn’t figure out which he hated worse. Long after the war, Joe would tell the editor of Sport magazine, Al Silverman, that the war years “never seemed to move at all.” He thought “they would never end.”
Actually, they would end for Joe in a matter of months. The rest of his unit pushed on, westward. Most of them had a real war, too: fueling and re-servicing the bombers that would pound the Japanese into submission—from Guam to Saipan, Tinian, and finally on to V-J Day. But Joe’s war had a victory of another sort. He finally convinced the Air Force brass to send him back to the mainland, send him to a hospital in California, to fix his stomach for good. And then he prevailed on the mainland brass to transfer him again—this time, February ’45, to the Special Services in Atlantic City, New Jersey. That just happened to be the spring training home of the New York Yankees, who would gather there in a matter of weeks. And it wasn’t too far from New York City, home to Miss Dorothy Arnold and the three-year-old Joe DiMaggio, Jr.
THE PHONE WOULD RING in the middle of the night, and she’d grab it, before the noise could wake Joey. Dorothy had only a tiny place in the Adams Hotel.
Of course, it would be him. “I can’t sleep,” Joe would say. And then he’d start in on her again, how they ought to be together now—she had to be his.
Dorothy thought, he could be so sweet sometimes, when he wanted to try. He’d call up just for nothing, and tell her about a pretty nur
se in the GI ward—but not as pretty as her. Or when he was out of the hospital, that summer, he’d call up on a Friday, and say he could get a car. He could drive up and take her off to the country for the weekend, get some fresh air—what would she say to that?
What she said was, she wanted to be friends, for Joey’s sake. Of course, they had to talk, they could see each other, take care of each other. But she wanted her own life. Their divorce was final now—the interlocutory decree expired in May 1945—and she was free. She’d hired a nanny, and tried out for several parts. Nothing had happened yet. But you never could tell.
In August, they sent Joe to another hospital, this one in Sarasota, near the Florida beach where they used to live together for spring training. In retrospect, those times didn’t seem so bad. He called from down there, too, and wrote the sweetest letters—said he was thinking of her all the time.
Tell the truth, she thought about him, too. How could she not, with Joey, now nearly four, asking, asking: Is Daddy coming home from the war? Joey was thrilled whenever he saw Big Joe. Dorothy’s friends thought Joey was a bit strange—he was a clingy kid, for one thing, and a biter. One time Dorothy bit him back, just to show him how it felt. But that didn’t stop him. Another odd thing: he had a habit of looking up her girlfriends’ skirts—they’d glance down, and his little fingers would be lifting their hems! But he could be sweet, too, and he’d light up if anybody paid attention—especially a man.
She had a couple of fellows on the hook, though she said it was nothing serious. One was no more than a boy, named Gary, and one rich guy, George Schubert—he was in stocks somehow—he kept calling her, too. But it wasn’t the same as when Joe called. No, she wasn’t past him—not yet—she freely admitted that. He called from Florida and said he might get mustered out. Maybe next month! Joe said he’d move up to New York, and get her a real place. They could have a real apartment again . . . like the old days, like the old high life—her life, as she’d started to think of it.
The papers picked up hints of Joe’s imminent discharge. The sportswriters spun out fantasies—how the Great DiMaggio might come back this season, right now! Surely, he could help to make the Yankees champs again. Then, there were darker hints in the papers: how DiMaggio might get a break, just because he was a famous slugger. The grumbling grew so insistent that the hometown daily, the San Francisco Chronicle, jumped in with unusual truculence to defend him:
“Immediately, some one will yell, if and when he’s discharged, that he was mustered out because he’s a baseball player. For that reason we repeat what we have already said here several times. It is this: ‘If DiMaggio were a truck driver, beauty operator or newspaper office boy he’d have been discharged for medical reasons long ago.’ Notice that, though we have printed this statement three times, nobody has ever denied it!”
By September, the news was official: DiMaggio would get a medical discharge owing to duodenal ulcers. And he would head straight for New York—though not to suit up for the Yankees. The club’s new president, Larry MacPhail, got out front with a public statement to take the press off DiMaggio’s case: he said he had counseled the Yankee slugger to attend to his health, sit out till next season, and come back strong in 1946. But it was clear, in the same stories, that this was not all MacPhail’s idea. The Clipper had another sort of comeback in mind. “DiMaggio,” the AP reported, “ . . . attended the first game of a doubleheader between the Yankees and the St. Louis Browns with his former wife, Dorothy Arnold, and their 3 year old son.”
Well, why shouldn’t she go out with him? It was exciting! They went to the ballpark and everybody cheered them. The cameramen all wanted her picture with him. Everybody asking what they would do . . . it was wonderful! Joe wanted her to move to her own apartment, right away. And though he wouldn’t get a dime from the team till next year, he said he would help her. He said he could find a way to make money, he had an idea. And that was exciting, too: Joe was going to write a book. Well, he wouldn’t write it all himself but with a pal, Tom Meany, a terrific sportswriter, who would talk to Joe and put the story down in his own words. And here was the clincher: Joe wanted her to help! He said: Dot, you always know what to say. Joe pointed out to her, she was the reader in the family. He said he couldn’t do it without her.
He was so sweet. And so thin! He must have lost twenty pounds, poor thing. And he needed a home, needed her—for the book! . . . Dorothy often regretted that she’d never gone to college. (My God, she used to say, what I could have done with four years of college!) But she was always reading to improve herself. And now she gave one of her favorite books to Joe: How to Improve Your Word Power. It was a program—new words to learn every week. And the dear man was reading it all the time.
And he did sign up to write his life story, and Tom Meany came over and they worked together in her new apartment, a wonderful place on the East Side. Joey was so happy—and Dorothy, too. They worked side by side with Tom, every day. Joe put in the book, Lucky to Be a Yankee, the story of how Dorothy cured his slump. She saw the 5 on his back was different, and she told him! . . . Tom wrote all that down—Joe insisted. And afternoons, she had to run out and get something to cook. And decorating—she was hunting antiques in all the little shops. Though when her old friend Dorothy Kilgallen mentioned in her column that “poor Joe DiMaggio” sent his wife out for “second-hand furniture,” Dottie was furious. That wasn’t fair! Joe was so generous. He bought a ton of Christmas toys for Joey—“Little Butch,” as they called him. And Joe didn’t even mind when her mother came to visit, and her sister, too. And if Dorothy didn’t have time to cook, he was always ready to take them all out. One night, they strolled out, near 86th and Madison. And Joe said—the dear man—“Let’s go to Longchamps and get some of their insatiable food.” Well, they didn’t even laugh in front of him, he was trying so hard.
Of course, he wasn’t altogether different. She couldn’t expect that. He’d still go out with Toots and the boys—he’d say he had to relax. And once, when her mother and sister were there, they were all going out for the evening, and Dorothy appeared in a new black dress, with a scooping sweetheart neckline. She looked spectacular. “Take that off and put something decent on,” Joe growled.
“But Joe!”
“No wife of mine is going out like that. Take off that goddamn dress.”
Well, she stuck to her guns, she wore it. But Joe didn’t say another word all night.
Still, it was so clear, he wanted to be with her. He wanted them to marry again, make a home, be a family. And she wanted that, too. That’s the way she was raised, what she thought was right. That’s why she gave up everything for him in the first place!
By January Tom had the whole book written down. It would come out that summer, as the new baseball season heated up. Joe’s thoughts turned also to the season ahead. And he wanted Dorothy to come with him to Florida. He wanted to get down there early: it wouldn’t be easy getting in shape. And she would have gone along, she said, if it wasn’t for that idea of home. She had so much to do on their place. “No, Joe,” she said. “Let me stay up here and work on the house. By the time you get back, everything will be ready.”
He wasn’t upset—maybe even relieved: he wouldn’t want distractions down there. Though he would never say it aloud, he couldn’t be sure how his body would respond. He was thirty-one years old now, and hadn’t played steadily for almost two years. He had the club’s new management to deal with. This MacPhail, the new boss, wasn’t Joe’s kind of guy: a showman, a showboat—from the Brooklyn Dodgers. Well, he’d have plenty to learn about Yankee baseball. But they’d show him. They’d get the club together again. Joe was looking forward to this. Hadn’t he done exactly what he’d planned with Dorothy? Well, he’d show them. He’d put it all back together. And ’46 would be the year.
EVERYBODY TALKED ABOUT how he’d changed. Not the way he played, and not physically (though he was still ten pounds underweight). It was the way he smiled, laughed out loud, and tal
ked about anything—Daig was tellin’ stories! And chatting up the writers, and buying dinners: happy as a kid. Well, not like the kid he used to be. Some other kid, maybe, the kind you could talk to. Hell, he didn’t even hold out, but settled on what MacPhail gave him. Same as his old pay: that’s what the papers said.
It was the old-timers who were truly amazed, writers most of all. Abe Kemp, who had known Joe for three years before the kid could vote, now had such a pleasant visit with old Dead Pan that he felt compelled to tell his readers: “There is a polish and a savoir faire to Joe now that one cannot help but notice. He is an agreeable host, certain of himself and free in his conversation.”
A writer for the INS wire, Caswell Adams, was more explicit about his surprise:
“For a fellow who met Joe DiMaggio when he first came roaring into the big league, to chat with him nowadays is indeed a novelty. A pleasant one.
“In 1936, Joe was a silent young man whose idea of a lengthy conversation with a sports writer was ‘yop’ or ‘maybe.’ He seemed scared of the writers . . . he resented any panning and took written praise with silence. He was about as chummy a fellow as an elderly clam.
“Seven years of great play as a Yankee and three long years in the Army have changed all that. He now is a swell companion, intelligent talker, and laughs easily.”
The writers started calling him “the new DiMaggio.” This was something more than “Word Power” from a book. For the first time, Joe would make the effort to connect with others. He was as purposeful about it as he was about good relations with the new club management; or patching things up with the Skipper, Joe McCarthy; or wooing Dorothy into remarriage. In fact, it was Dorothy’s advice that launched him on this charm campaign. As he told the writer (later his biographer) Gene Schoor: “I’m tired of being called a sour-puss. I want people to like me and I try to like them . . . . I guess maybe, if I could relax and smile a little more, it would be better all around.”
Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life (Touchstone Book) Page 27