Of course, the celebrated musician was one of Dr. Rock’s, too . . . and an old friend of Joe’s—since they’d talked about that song, with the famous lyric:
Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
The nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
When he first heard about that, Joe wanted to sue. He thought those two singin’ guys were trying to make him out like a bum. “I haven’t gone anywhere,” he protested. “I’m employed.”
But now, he liked Paul Simon. And he liked the song. It was a memory for him—and another good thing: everybody still knew that song. “You know,” Joe would say, when the subject of “Mrs. Robinson” came up, “that song will still be around after I’m gone.”
But it wasn’t his favorite Paul Simon song. Joe’s favorite was “Bookends”—which he’d ask the driver to play, in Dr. Rock’s limo . . . and Joe would sing along:
Preserve your memories;
They’re all that’s left you.
Tell the truth, that was half the joy with the girls. More than half, now. (Joe couldn’t, you know, follow up like he used to.) But the memories they brought to him, brought from him, those were as strong, alive as ever—and Joe held on to them. They were his.
One night, Joe and his pals were closing out at the Waldorf—Peacock Alley (Joe liked the waffles)—after the big annual dinner for the Baseball Hall of Fame. All the guys were there—Mario Faustini and Nat Recine, Dick Burke, Dr. Rock, Bill Gallo . . . all grinning at each other as the octogenarian Clipper put the moves on this blond broad who wanted to meet him—TV star, or something—Susan Anton. Joe was all over her with stories, till it was quite late . . . and, finally, Ms. Anton had to go. The boys stood to leave, as well—to take the Clipper upstairs to the suite the organizers had rented for him. And Mario whispered: “Joe, why don’t you take Susan upstairs, and—you know . . .”
“Nah,” Joe said sadly. And he held his index finger in the air—but bent at the knuckles. And Joe didn’t have to say more.
But on the way up in the elevator, Mario was startled to hear, just behind his ear, Joe’s voice in half-whisper:
“Don’t forget,” said Joe. “There was a time I had the best there ever was.”
IT WAS LIKE Joe had two New Yorks to visit—both had their joys, and both their bitterness. There was the New York that was alive now—and Joe wanted to see that—he was hungry for it. He never wanted to be in bed. But he got so tired now—sometimes, he couldn’t keep going—he couldn’t walk four blocks . . . that was hard to take.
But for him, that live New York stood shoulder to shoulder with the shadow town Joe knew. That was his New York, which had come and gone, leaving shadows everywhere.
The Waldorf, for instance—Marilyn had an apartment there. Joe had almost broken his hands one night, beating on the door of that apartment—trying to break it down.
No, not all the shadows were fond . . . .
A lot of them were whispers of loss. Fifty-fifth Street: Joe Adonis’s joint, with the Strega bottles on the tables. Joe and Georgie drank there . . . . But Solotaire was gone, from a heart attack, twenty years ago.
Times Square—the Edison: Jimmy Cannon, poor sonofabitch, had a stroke in his apartment—they didn’t find him for three days. And that street-tough Mick was still alive. But never the same. He could barely move. And it killed him, soon after.
That Sheraton—the old Americana: Joe stayed there free for years—the Yankee Clipper Suite. Frank Scott used to pick him up there, ride him to New Jersey for dinner with Halper. But Frank got to be like all the rest—asking Joe to sign stuff. And when Joe cut him off, Scott got bitter—said he had to carry envelopes with cash from Halper, so Joe would come to dinner. Well, those guys were past tense. Frank was dead. Halper had a stroke. But Joe went on.
Fifty-second—that was Toots’s. Used to be. Toots got to be an old drunk at the end. And lost his joint. All the guys sent money. Joe wouldn’t. Then Toots had a stroke, too. He was walking on canes. Joe saw him, the last time, in the locker room at the Stadium—Old Timers’ Day—and Toots stumped in. Everybody made a fuss. Mantle, Martin, Berra, Ford all hugged him. But Toots only wanted Joe. Joe was in his corner. And Toots came across the room on his canes—or tried to come. Joe turned his back and walked away, into the trainer’s room.
Sometimes, Joe wished the shadows would go away—the bad ones. Or he wished he could pick and choose. But they reached out for him . . . you could almost see it on him, when they took over. It happened more and more, when he was alone. You could see him on the street, sometimes—Fifth Avenue, or Central Park South—just wandering, with a faraway look in his eye. Like he didn’t even see everybody watching him. Or they weren’t there.
The writer Gay Talese thought that look was the consequence of fame. It was the same look that Talese had seen (on those same streets) in the eyes of Greta Garbo. Because when people got so famous that there was no one else on their level—no one else had a life at that pitch of hyperexistence—then, it was like the other people didn’t quite have existence . . . they simply weren’t there.
But it might have been just the shadows. And maybe Joe was with others—who weren’t there.
He would chase them away. He would call Dr. Rock. “What’s going on? Do you wanta have a coffee? . . .”
And with Rock, something was always going on. “Hey, Joe! Would you mind if I introduced you to Isaac Stern? You know, he comes from San Francisco, too . . . .”
One day, DiMaggio was hanging around in Dr. Rock’s office, when the Doc inquired if it would be all right if he brought in another patient—he was in the waiting room—would Joe like to have a talk with Henry Kissinger?
Well, that sounded fine to Joe. He had met Kissinger once before, in the 1970s, at the Stadium—Dr. K. was another denizen of Steinbrenner’s box. But now, Hank and Joe had a good long talk.
It turned out young Henry was a Stadium bleacher bum—back in ’38, ’39, he was always out there—and never saw a ball get past DiMaggio. At that point, Kissinger was making eleven bucks a week, but he’d spring for a dollar-ten for a reserved seat when Bob Feller was pitching. Then, Kissinger would watch DiMag stand in, with that distinctive stillness—not a wiggle of the bat or twitch of a leg . . . until he hammered Feller’s fastball toward a distant fence. Even then, young Henry was a student of power. And DiMaggio was his hero. “He was in a world by himself,” as Kissinger remembered. “There was nobody who could take over a ballpark like he could.”
In the present day they saw the world companionably, too. If DiMaggio wasn’t a lifelong Republican, the Kennedy boys had driven him to forty years’ fealty with the GOP. Joe approved of Kissinger. And enjoyed Kissinger approving him. When Kissinger brought baseballs, Joe signed them for Dr. K.’s nephews—Kissinger had no idea Joe didn’t like to sign. Now, the two pals would arrange to meet in the Kaiser’s skybox for big games. They’d sit together and Joe would hold forth. (Kissinger learned not to ask: Joe would talk if he wanted to.) One time, eighth inning of a World Series Game One—Atlanta was clobbering the Yanks—both Hank and Joe left their seats for a moment, and when they came back, the Braves’ skipper, Bobby Cox, had replaced one left-hander with another. “New pitcher,” Joe remarked. “Looks the same to me,” said Hank. “No, look,” Joe said. “It’s a different arm angle. You gotta look for the release point. See this guy comes three quarters, he’s gonna curve you on the outside—unless you move up a little, get the bat out to hit it before the break. See, watch, Doc—the second baseman’ll move over a couple a steps . . .” And Kissinger was in heaven. “If you had told me in 1938 that I would be secretary of state, and I would be friends with DiMaggio, I would have thought the second was less likely than the first.”
America she is wonderful—as the papas on the Wharf used to say. And DiMaggio was her favorite son. Or one of them, who knew all the rest. And he understood, at last, it didn’t matter that Kissinger had written more books than Joe had read . . . Hank liked him. And they had mo
re in common than not—all the big ones did, who’d been at the top. It was like those tables at the autograph shows, where they sold the stuff to the fans. There was Joe DiMaggio’s signed baseball—a special one, three hundred bucks (because, you see how he wrote “Yankee Clipper” under his name there?)—which was next to the George Bush White House cuff links, and just in front of the autographed photo from Farrah Fawcett (that’s when her hair was great)—and an original cel from the first Disney movie with Donald Duck. They were all a bit different from each other, sure. But they were all big.
And so, in 1997, when Joe had to show up to get an award from the Sports Broadcasters of America, he brought along a special guest to make a few remarks at the podium. (Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome the State Department’s Greatest Living . . .). Of course, the sportscasters were delighted. And then, too, Hank saved Joe at the big Time magazine dinner, in March of 1998.
Now, that was the World Series of collectible bigs—when Time brought together the people who had graced its cover, to celebrate the magazine’s seventy-fifth year—it was damn near all “the greatest living” at a supper (catered by the Plaza) for twelve hundred in Radio City Music Hall. It was Winona Ryder in a chat ’n’ chew with the Gorbachevs, and Nicole Kidman and Kofi Annan, and Claudia Schiffer, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and Toni Morrison and Norman Mailer and Sophia Loren and Ralph Lauren and Lauren Bacall and the Drs. Kevorkian and Falwell and . . . well, you get the idea.
But Joe had a problem.
Bill Clinton wanted DiMag at his table. And DiMaggio loathed Clinton. Hated his politics. Hated his style. And that Monica Lewinsky! That was not up to the standard. (As Joe pointed out to some pals: “You know, we paid for that White House. He shouldn’t be doing that there.”)
So, Dr. Rock (Joe’s escort) had to tell the Time bigs that Hank and Nancy Kissinger had asked for Joe at their table. And Joe had already accepted—the Clipper had made a commitment! (And Hank backed up that story for his pal.) A few gossip-mongers still wrote how Joe had snubbed the president. But that was only a little spray in the ocean of ink about that dinner . . . and Joe got to sit where he liked.
He liked everything about that night. Joe was radiant in his bespoke Pierre Cardin tuxedo. And amid the hundreds of movers and shakers, heads of state and movie stars . . . DiMaggio was the star of the show. From the moment he and Dr. Rock walked in through the lobby of Radio City, there was a line of bigs—a never-ending line—all stars-turned-fan, just to shake Joe’s hand. Steven Spielberg, Sean Connery, Jack Lemmon, Kevin Costner, Tom Cruise . . . and Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren, Mira Sorvino, Sharon Stone . . . and The Greatest, Muhammad Ali, came over and Joe took his boxing stance and made like he was gonna hit the champ with a right cross, and they mugged for pictures . . . and the writers and the newsies all crowded around—Mailer, Cronkite, Jennings, Rather, Mike Wallace, Tim Russert (“This,” said Joe as he embraced Russert, “is one of the good guys.” Joe never missed Meet the Press.) . . . It was only the call to dinner that broke up the happy crowd around the Clipper. Joe talked diplomacy—sitting between Hank and Nancy—when they weren’t all telling stories about everybody else who was there. Dr. Rock sat across the table with Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft—they were Joe’s pals, too. In fact, they’d had lunch with Joe, just a couple of weeks before.
(It was only afterward Joe tried to figure out with Dr. Rock how the editors of Time went about deciding who would sit with whom. “Why do you think,” Joe mused, “they put Brooks and Anne Bancroft with us?” Dr. Rock shook his head disgustedly. “Joe—get it? They sat DiMaggio with Mrs. Robinson!” . . . “You know, Doc,” Joe said, “you might be right.”)
And they sat all night, everybody stayed—nobody wanted the party to end. Joe least of all. Because for him, it was like his two New Yorks, his live pals and the shadows, too, all got dressed up and did the town together for one night. They got Bill Clinton up to make a speech—a toast, actually, to FDR—that was the last Democrat Joe liked. They got Gorbachev up to speak about leadership (and Joe told his story of how he got his ball signed by Gorby at the White House) . . . they got that computer man, Bill Gates, to make a toast about the Wright brothers, and Toni Morrison talked about Martin Luther King (Marilyn thought that guy was great) . . . scientists talked about scientists and editors about editors (that was kind of slow) . . . but then, Kevin Costner got up, and made his toast—to Joe.
“There are certain people’s names that, when spoken out loud, are reminders of what men can be like,” Costner said. “To this day, when I hear the name Joe DiMaggio, it is so much more than a man’s name. It reminds me to play whatever game I’m in with more grace, and pride, and dignity . . . .
“He’s a man who speaks to us about things men don’t speak of—about how to walk through life, and how to receive the admiration that (only the famous can know) is half-deserved. And about how to wear defeat and disappointment as if it were just a passing storm.
“It’s important for you to know that I never actually saw Joe DiMaggio hit a ball, or catch one. I was never at Yankee Stadium to see him run into center field, or step up to the plate. But when I step into the yard to play catch with my son—whose name is Joe—I think about the Joe we are honoring tonight. I wish that both of us could go to the ballpark and see him play. Because men like Joe DiMaggio are not just of their own time. They are men for the ages. And as the century comes to a close, and debates heat up about who is the man or the woman of the century, I know the list will be impressive. But it will not be complete unless Joe DiMaggio’s name is on it. So, I’d like you to raise a glass to Joe DiMaggio, for showing us the way.”
That set off the loudest and longest ovation of the night—a thousand stars on their feet to cheer. Joe tried to busy himself, looking down, setting to rights his spoon and coffee cup. But at last, he looked up with a grin, and raised a hand to his brow, as if the custom Cardin tuxedo came with a cap that he could tip.
THE NEXT DAY, Joe was at Rock’s office. “Hey, Doc, get a ball, will you? We’ll send it to Costner’s kid.” So Rock found a baseball, and Joe signed it—“To Little Joe . . . from your friend in sports, Joe DiMaggio.”
But that was about all Joe did that day—that and wonder aloud where his energy had gone.
Dr. Rock wanted Joe to see a doctor in New York—the best specialists in the world, as Rock said—and he could get ’em all. Or whoever Joe wanted, or needed—that’s what Rock was trying to say. Positano could see something wasn’t right with Joe’s health—and hadn’t been right for more than a year. They’d be walking down the street, and Joe would stop. “Wait up, Doc.” (It used to be, Positano would have to run to keep up.) “Doc, I don’t understand why the hell I get so winded.” . . . So, Positano pleaded with the Clipper—he could bring Joe in right now, to New York Presbyterian (where Rock was affiliated) . . . and have him checked out by the best—today.
Joe wouldn’t do it. He didn’t want to waste his time in New York. He didn’t want to deal with it. He said he hated doctors (“No offense, Doc”) . . . he’d get someone to check him out in Florida—at the Hollywood, Florida, Memorial Hospital. That was where Joe was affiliated. It was Hollywood Memorial that ran the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital.
That hospital had been good for Joe. He had lent his name to the children’s wing when he was in that tax fight with California. It bolstered his claim to Florida residency—it showed Joe was involved with the local community, he was active in the civic affairs of South Florida—his new home . . . . And Morris would occasionally tell the newspapers that the money he demanded for Joe to appear—well, that wasn’t just pay for the Clipper. Most of that money would be spent on sick kids.
It was all tax-true . . . which was to say, it hid the facts. DiMaggio never gave money to the hospital. Well, once he wrote out a check for a hundred bucks, at the request of his favorite great-grandchild—Paula’s daughter, Vanessa . . . . But for the most part, Joe wouldn’t give anything—not even a signed ball. If the h
ospital officials wanted autographed DiMaggio baseballs or signed pictures (for fund-raising purposes), they had to buy them on the open market—from dealers, like Jerry Romolt.
Still, Joe’s name had been good for the hospital—and vice versa. There was a giant billboard looming over I-95, heading south through Hollywood—a picture that was like a landmark now—a smiling DiMag holding up a smiling infant—with the clever copyline: “DiMaggio and the Babe.” It lent a new tint of altruism to his aura, and displayed the Great Name (in letters six feet tall) for a new generation that never even saw a Mr. Coffee ad.
Joe could rely on the hospital staff to take care of that name—they had an interest in the business. And he could count on them to never breathe aloud the word he never wanted to hear—that was cancer. Joe had his generation’s fear of the disease, and that awful word. To him it was like the evil eye—a curse that might descend upon him, if he even heard the word in a sentence with his name.
So, through the spring and summer of 1998, Joe’s breathing grew more labored, his stamina diminished. He’d come to New York, and Dr. Rock would get on him. “Joe, at least let’s find out what it is . . .” And Joe would say what he’d said for a year. He had a lung infection. “How long can you have a goddamn infection?” Positano asked in exasperation. But then he’d have to back off. Joe would dig in his heels—this was his affair. “Doc, I’m just more comfortable with the fellas in Florida.” . . . Mario Faustini suggested to Joe in a gentle way, “You know, it doesn’t hurt to get a second opinion.” That was exactly what Joe didn’t want. He’d talked this over with Morris. It was Morris who tended the relationship with Memorial Hospital . . . and Morris who warned Joe that in New York, he couldn’t protect the name.
Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life (Touchstone Book) Page 60