And in the clubhouse after, that was his moment. They mobbed him, poured drinks on him, they kissed him (and not just for pictures). Scores of writers surrounded Page, yelling questions: How’dya get through it? How’dya keep going? . . . Page said it was because of the Big Guy—there, at the next locker.
“I knew I had to do it for Joe.”
Topping, Webb, and MacPhail rented the ballroom of the Waldorf for a grand celebration. Now the war was really over, all was right with the world: the New York Yankees were champions again . . . . The place was all aglitter, a big swing band playing, more champagne than you could drink, and everybody in their finest—wives, too, if you had one to bring. And right at the beginning, the party kicked into high gear when MacPhail announced he was selling out his shares in the club. Just like that—MacPhail was gone. So the guys all relaxed and really had a good time.
“Maybe two hours into the party,” as Spec Shea recalled, “the big doors open up. And there’s majestic Joe DiMaggio. Right there, with two broads—two blondes—one on each arm. They’re about two inches taller than he is. And he’s six foot one. They were beautiful women. They walked in with him, all dolled up in nice evening clothes and everything, and walked over to a table which they had reserved for him.
“And he called all the guys over, and he was introducin’ them to, you know, the girls and everything. And it turned out to be a gala affair, I’ll tell you. Because everybody, you know, that wanted to dance, or something, the girls were there and Joe didn’t care whether you danced with them or not.”
(Spec maybe didn’t just mean, you know, dance.)
“But he had a good time, that night, too . . . . Oh, Joe was very happy, very happy.”
SINAT, TOOTS, AND JOE ADMIRE THE NEW PORTRAIT.
JOE AND JOE JR. GRACE THE FIRST ISSUE OF SPORT.
YANKEE STADIUM: THE HERO, ALONE.
EXITING THE HOSPITAL, ON CRUTCHES, IN CAMEL HAIR.
CHAPTER 12
FOR THE SECOND EDITION OF LUCKY TO BE A YANKEE, Joe brought Tom Meany back to make a few revisions. The first thing was to take out all that bullcrap about Dorothy telling him how to hit. But there was also an addition to the text—a new foreword by the popular New Deal postmaster general, James A. Farley. He was a Toots Shor pal, and the reigning boss of New York politics.
Farley wrote that DiMaggio’s book told the story of America. Because of his ability to play ball, Joe not only saved himself from the hard life of a fisherman, he enabled his father to stay off the boat and take it easy, too. Farley might have put at risk a few votes from fishing folk, but he was no slouch at gauging a mood. Depression was gone, the war was history: people didn’t want to hear about hard times anymore. We were at peace, strong and rich. And right on cue, here was our hero, the exemplar of power, wealth, ease: America had found her first Broadway Joe.
In New York, where everything big happened, every event was bigger, big-time, when DiMaggio was there. The only men who could match him for size in the public imagination were the great prizefighters. But even with a boxing crowd, Joe might have outranked them all. In ’48, when Rocky Graziano fought Tony Zale for the middleweight title, Frank Sinatra walked into the packed arena to polite applause. Walter Winchell, the nation’s most famous newshound, got a few cheers, too. Then, suddenly—as Mel Allen described it:
“There was heard a vocal outburst from one of the distant entrances. You knew, of course, that some noted personage was arriving. All eyes and ears were trained and strained on the sector, as the mingled applause and cheering, like a raging forest fire fanned by a brisk breeze, increased in crescendo until it became a single contagious roar. Is it Jack Dempsey? Is it Gene Tunney? Is it Joe Louis? No? Well, this one time it can’t be Superman. But it was the nearest thing in sports clothes to that legendary hero. It was Joe DiMaggio.”
It never mattered who else was there—Joe was the Big Name. One time, Ernest Hemingway accompanied DiMaggio to the fights. Maybe Joe was hoping the novelist would protect him. Didn’t work: fans were on Joe all night. One guy finished gushing on the Jolter, and then he saw Hemingway: “You’re somebody, too—aren’t you?” With a nod toward Joe, Hemingway said: “Yeah, I’m his doctor.”
Of course, that found its way into print: Big Names were news. Put a couple of beauties together, like the Clipper and Papa (the Clipper and whoever) and it didn’t matter exactly what they did. Mostly they were enjoying themselves. People liked to read about Big Names having big times. Now, the nation’s readers were just as likely to get the latest on DiMag from the nightlife columns as they were from the sports page. Joe went to a club to hear some singer—that was an item. Joe was in some restaurant for a bowl of spaghetti—that was an item, too. If there was a broad across the table, that was a headliner. That’s one reason Joe always wanted a guy to go around with him. The protection he needed wasn’t just from fans.
It wasn’t that he begrudged the columnists: he didn’t mind his name in the paper. And, hell, he’d known them all for years: Winchell, Len Lyons, that nosy Kilgallen broad; even the battle-ax, Louella Parsons, used to write up Joe like an old friend. But the problem was he couldn’t be sure what they’d write. And their cameramen, at any moment, firing away with the flashbulbs—what if Joe didn’t want that picture? . . . That’s why a guy like Peanuts came in so handy. They weren’t going to write about Peanuts—Jimmy Who?—if he got loud, showed a temper, told some photographer to go fuck himself. Joe would never have to raise his voice—and never have to ask for a break. Joe DiMaggio didn’t ask for favors.
Peanuts was faithful and he’d do anything. Joe liked to have a car at spring training, but why should he drive all the way to Florida? So, Joe could fly, or ride the train. Peanuts would drive Joe’s Cadillac down. Or say there was someplace Joe shouldn’t go: to be precise, someplace Joe shouldn’t be seen. For instance, there was the dog track near St. Pete, where of course there was betting. And of course, the commissioner of baseball didn’t want to see any players in there. Joe wouldn’t go in. Instead, he’d have Peanuts park the Caddy outside the fence on the backstretch—whence Joe could see fine. If the Clipper wanted to bet, Peanuts could run in, put a couple of bills on the five-dog. No problem.
The road secretary of the Yankees, Frank Scott, was even better for certain tight spots Joe ran into. Frank was a college man—the University of Pittsburgh was where he’d fallen in love with sports. And he had manners, an eager affability that smoothed out some situations (where rough-house from Peanuts only would have made things worse). There was, for example, the night in St. Pete—spring training ’48—when Joe got trapped in his room at the team hotel. The Hotel Soreno was one of those elegant pastel piles, built in the 1920s, when the truly rich and newly rich all came down for the winter season. The Yankees had used the place since old Col. Ruppert’s day, and of course they were expected to act like proper guests.
Joe had been properly Joltin’ a showgirl named Gregg Sherwood on and off for some time. Pretty girl. No big deal. He was friendly with a lot of girls. He might even have had one in his room that night. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was, Gregg Sherwood was not in the room. She was in the hall outside Joe’s door, slammin’-off-the-walls drunk, and yelling at the top of her lungs. Scott was awakened at two A.M. by a call from the hotel manager. He ran for Joe D.’s room . . . and there was Gregg, on her knees, arched against the door like a parenthesis—her belly at mid-curve, pressuring the wood. That and her fists, as she pounded and screamed: “Goddammit, Joe! I’ll do anything you want, Joe—LET ME IN! . . .” Well, if Frank hadn’t had those manners, he could have got maimed by Ms. Sherwood’s fingernails as he pried her, yowling, off the door, and cleaned up the mess outside Joe’s room. Of course, the Clipper never had to come out, or say a word. Frank wouldn’t say a word, either. That would have made an item, sure—would have been embarrassing for DiMag. And it was Frank’s job to take care of the Big Guy.
In Frank’s case, that was more than a job: he did it for l
ove. Or you could say, he was in love with the job—the most exciting he’d ever had, the most exciting he could even think of. He was the kind of guy who never was big enough, fast enough, strong enough to play—so he helped out the coach. That’s how he’d started, at Pitt, just a few years before. And to think, now, the Great DiMaggio would ask him, Frank, if he would come along to the movies, or sit and have breakfast, or walk with him, help him out with a crowd . . . well, that was Frank’s dream come true—even if there had been no paycheck. In fact, the following year, when the GM, George Weiss, would take away Frank’s job (just because he wasn’t Weiss’s own man), Scott would become the first professional sports agent. Not for contracts with the team—agents were still taboo there. But he’d work out endorsement deals, appearance fees, that sort of thing. He’d take care of DiMaggio for the next four decades. (And the dream was still coming true: for forty years he’d never get a paycheck from the Jolter, either.)
Things went even smoother for DiMag once the team moved up to New York, where a network of helpers and protectors was on alert, full-time, for the Clipper. In those days, the network coordinator was Solotaire. By ’48, Gentleman George had moved Joe out of the Edison, and (talk about full-time!) into his own suite at the Elysee Hotel. That way, Georgie could take care of things more efficiently—pick up the Jolter’s cleaning, or bring him a nice sandwich from the Stage Delicatessen, or make sure that no one who was out to take advantage could get close to DiMag. See, Solotaire knew more people than Joe would ever meet in his life. George got along with almost all—but he could always tell who wanted what. In their sitting room at the Elysee, Georgie and Joe would talk into the wee hours—in a casual way, they were refining their list: who was an asshole.
In general, refinement was the way George helped out with the business of being DiMaggio. Not that Solotaire spoke like the Duke of Windsor, or knew the best years of Bordeaux. But in the business of stardom, he was a sophisticate. Here was the man to handle a columnist—Georgie knew the Big Name game better than any writer. He could trade with them: he’d give ’em two Gwen Verdons, if they’d clean up one item about DiMag. But with Georgie it was more than practical protection: he understood what Joe wanted, what Joe had to be. He understood living up to the standard: everything about Joe ought to look like a million bucks. Solotaire also brought discernment to the ticklish topic of women. After all the years on Broadway, he knew every working showgirl—better still, he knew the girls who were out of work, might have some time. He was always alert to possibilities for the Clipper, who liked a nice frisky looker, blond, young, who didn’t mind a bit of inconstancy. Solotaire knew how to disappear, if Joe and the girl were going to, you know, stay in. And of course George would go along, if Joe and the girl were going to go out. Joe would want someone along to talk.
Naturally, there were times George was tied up. (He’d have a review to rhyme on opening night, say; or he’d have to be at the office, or at home—he did have the wife and kid.) So Joe would let some other guys take him to lunch: there was Ben Barzone, the tie salesman; Harry Moss, the blind jeweler; Henry Blank, who’d close his garment firm and take Joe around all afternoon. They’d buy. And they’d sit for hours, and talk about him: “That homer in the fifth game, Joe. I knew you’d do it—but that was really a thrill . . . .” At night, Joe could always take his ease at Toots’s, or he’d ask Jimmy Cannon to go along to some other joints. (That was perfect: Cannon talked all the time.) Or on the off chance Cannon was absent, there’d be some other pal, who’d drop his own plans for the evening. To be in the network, you could put nothing ahead of the Dago.
One guy who’d drop it all for the Jolter was Lou Effrat, a sports writer for the Times. How Louie ever hooked on with the Great Gray Lady of 43rd Street was a mystery of the newspaper business. He was a Brooklyn boy, largely unlettered, a wiseacre, a gambler. If he came to the Stadium to fill in for Jim Dawson (the regular Timesman on the Yanks), Louie’s primary interest was in asking every trainer in the league about his own bad back. (“Trouble with my sacroiliac . . .”) Professionally and personally, he was most at home at the track (thoroughbreds in the afternoon, trotters in the evening), where he was affectionately known as Tap-Out, on account of his prodigious losing. Louie didn’t lose just often, but legendarily. He bet one horse who, while leading around the final turn, fell down dead. In reaction, Louie uttered one of his most famous laments: “I bet not to win, but to live.”
He was a fount of one-liners, as much quoted as he was beloved. His style was strictly New York street-smart: very hard to impress. He might, for example, pause in the doorway of a recital hall, where some twelve-year-old Chinese prodigy was demonstrating her virtuosity on the violin. Louie, who couldn’t even whistle, would turn away and shrug: “Eh! A Heifetz she’s not.” . . . But the Dago, the Big Guy, that was another matter. DiMaggio hung the moon, and scattered the stars, and shone like the sun, and—well, mostly, it was that DiMag picked Lou for a friend.
Here was palship: say, for example, the Clipper was at Shor’s, when some broad would be brought to his table to meet the Great DiMaggio. Joe would modestly shake her hand—that was all . . . until he called for Lou. When Effrat got to Joe’s corner, DiMaggio would murmur, “See that blonde in the black dress? Take her to the late show at El Morocco. Tell the maître d’ you’re at my table.” Louie would race to a phone and call Brooklyn—eleven P.M. or midnight—he’d wake his wife, Alice: “I’ll be late. I’m going out with the Dago!” She knew he’d have to squire some girl around for DiMaggio. But she didn’t protest. She could hear the fever in his voice. Then, Lou would leave with the girl. (“Joe will be along to meet us, in a while . . .”) Sure, there might be a columnist—photographers for sure—working the floor at El Morocco. But if anybody asked, it wasn’t Joe had a date with the girl. No, Effrat had the date.
When the Yankees would leave town for a western trip—St. Louis, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit—sometimes Lou would be away for two weeks. Alice and the other wives in Brooklyn would get dressed up, the day the boys were coming back: they’d go to Manhattan (“into the city,” as they said in Flatbush); they’d all meet for dinner at Shor’s. Joe would be on the banquette in his corner. Lou and Alice would be sitting at some unranked table in the middle of the dining room—and just about to tuck into their steaks, when a waiter would approach with a whisper for Louie: “He wants you.” Nothing more: three words. Lou would trot to the corner, where DiMaggio would speak to him briefly. Lou would tell Alice what Joe said, later: “Get rid of her.” . . . Meantime, she knew, from the moment that waiter appeared: she was going back to Brooklyn in a cab—and soon. Lou would bustle her out to the curb. “He needs me.”
How could Alice complain? Lou would always come home. They weren’t just married, but locked together for life—ever since she was fourteen, and running into a house, late for a high school sorority meeting . . . when she fell on her face. She’d tripped over Louie, who was on his knees in the hall, shooting craps. She knew his friendship with the Great Man was the most glorious thing in Lou’s life—his distinction. Effrat dined out for years on the story of his visit to DiMag at the Elysee. He was talking to Joe about a trip to Florida, when Louie reached for the ashtray, and—Wouff!—his sacroiliac went out again.
“Lay me down! Lay me down! Jesus! Just get me on the floor . . . Ooh! Oufff!”
The Dago says, uh, he’s got an appointment.
“That’s okay, Joe. Lemme lie here. Just don’t move me! I won’t bother anything.”
DiMaggio says: “Look Lou, sick or what, you gotta get out.” Then, as Lou told it in his memoir, I Was There:
“Suddenly, the doorbell rang and in walked a beautiful showgirl friend of Joe’s . . . .”
Beautiful? She was a knockout—with her nylons near, at Lou’s eye level, her perfume wafting in his ample nostrils. Dago’s got better things to do than tend to him—Lou understood. But there he was, in the middle of the floor in his soup-stained sports coat. Ahhgg! . . . He c
ouldn’t move.
Well, it all ended happily. Daig and the girl closed the door to the other room. Three hours later, Joe and Peanuts carried Lou out to the elevator. Tom Meany wrote the yarn up for laughs—but Meany changed the girl into Joe’s accountant: DiMag had an appointment with his CPA . . . .
That was the part Joe didn’t like about pals. No matter who the guy was, sooner or later he’d want something. Louie was in the suite that day trying to get Joe in on some junket to Florida—charity for sick kids, something like that. Second year in a row, Lou was asking . . . . Of course, Joe said he didn’t want to go. Then, Louie said: “If you don’t come, I don’t get the trip!” People acted like Joe owed them.
The thing they couldn’t seem to keep in mind: an appearance by DiMaggio was valuable—money in the bank. By ’48, it was literally money in the Bowery Bank, where Joe’s mob friends had established a trust account for his benefit. Here’s how the system worked: say Joe did end up, with some photogenic broad on his arm, at El Morocco for the late show—or at the Copacabana, the Stork Club, or the Cotton Club. That was promotion, it gave the place class. Of course, he was never going to see a tab. That went without saying. But shouldn’t Joe get something for lending the glamour of his presence? Sure, he should . . . . So all the managers of all the clubs knew, if the Clipper made an appearance, they should put a little something—say, a couple hundred bucks—into the trust account, next day. It was the gentlemanly thing to do; it fostered goodwill; it was clean and quiet.
Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life (Touchstone Book) Page 30