From: News and Views | City Beat |
Tuesday, March 09, 1999

Yankee Clipper
Joe DiMaggio Dies at 84

  Joe DiMaggio, a fisherman's son whose grace in the fields of sports, culture and commerce made him an American legend, died yesterday at his home here. He was 84.

  One of baseball's great players and one of the nation's most enduring public figures despite being intensely private, the Yankee Clipper succumbed to complications arising in October from lung cancer surgery.

  He was visited Sunday by his brother Dominic, one granddaughter, and his long-time friend Joe Nacchio.

  "(He) fought his illness as hard as he played the game of baseball, and with the same dignity, style and grace with which he lived his life," said Morris Engelberg, DiMaggio's attorney and spokesman during the wrenching seesaw of his fight for life.

  In his last days, DiMaggio was visited daily by Dominick, and the two of them watched television together.

  But the Yankee was so weak he could not walk and was kept on a respirator, confined to his bed, sources said.

  DiMaggio's death came one month before his old team's home opener — where he had hoped to throw out the first ball. That hope was evident in a sign friends had taped near his bed at his home: "April 9 — Yankee Stadium or Bust."

  "I told him, 'Joe, you have a date with the Yankees on Opening Day,' " Yankee owner George Steinbrenner said yesterday, recalling a meeting with DiMaggio six days ago. " 'We are counting on you to throw out the first ball.' "

  Added Steinbrenner: "He was very alert, but after a while he said, 'You must be tired of talking to me.' I instinctively knew that he was tired and it was time for me to go."

  DiMaggio will be buried Thursday in his hometown of San Francisco, where flags were lowered to half-staff. His family suggested donations to the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital here, or to the nearby Hospice Care Center of Broward County.

  At St. Peter & Paul Church in San Francisco's Italian enclave of North Beach, arrangements were under way for a private funeral.

  "He always considered this his parish, this was his church," said the church's 73-year-old secretary, Aurora Piazza. "The family wants everything quiet and simple, no fanfare."

  New Yorkers paused yesterday to remember the athlete who filled baseball stadiums and the nation's need for heroes long after he left the game.

  Mayor Giuliani gave new momentum to a plan to name the West Side Highway after DiMaggio and said the city soon will host a memorial.

  Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer said he will ask the City Council to name a subway station plaza at River Ave. and E. 161st St. after DiMaggio. The station near Yankee Stadium already has plazas named after two other Yankee icons, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

  In Florida, people gathered at one of DiMaggio's favorite restaurants, a New York-style deli near his lawyer's office in Hollywood, to remember the silver-haired ex-center fielder who mostly and politely kept to himself.

  One woman, Mirna Gleason, a native of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, dipped into her purse and retrieved a two-year-old autograph that DiMaggio had given her after first declining on grounds that he didn't sign while eating.

  "But then I told him it was for my nephew from Bensonhurst who was too shy to ask for it, and he said, 'Bensonhurst? Give me that napkin.' "

  Elsewhere in Florida, spring training games began with moments of silence for the player who still held one of the game's great records — the 56 consecutive games during the magical summer of 1941 in which DiMaggio got a base hit.

  Admirers drove by the guarded entrance to the gated community where DiMaggio had lived for the last several years. They were unable to get very close — the way he liked it most of the time.

  "I just remember him as a class act," said Bernie Ruthen, a former New Yorker who had been the only Yankee fan on his Dodger block in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

  "I remember near the end of his career, when they walked another batter to get to Joe," Ruthen said. "It was so sad, but Joe got up and hit a triple. People stood up cheering, and then they cried, they were so happy."

  DiMaggio grew more leery of his fame after his nine-month marriage to actress Marilyn Monroe in 1954. The marriage introduced him to a wider world, but he grew uncomfortable under the spotlight that followed her.

  He did love her, however, and he never remarried; he told a friend that he sent roses to her grave site every week for 15 years after she died in 1962.

  That wasn't the only personal heartbreak he had. DiMaggio had long been estranged from his son, Joe Jr., from a previous marriage, and it is believed the two were not able to patch it up after DiMaggio grew ill.

  His tumor was discovered in September, and twice DiMaggio almost died after the tumor was removed in October. He left the hospital in January, and many thought it was so he could die at home.

Tributes to DiMaggio

  "This son of Italian immigrants gave every American something to believe in. He became the very symbol of American grace, power and skill. When future generations look back at the 20th century, they will think of the Yankee Clipper."

  "Those of us who were privileged to attend that evening met a true American hero, a symbol of all that is decent and good in the game of baseball."

  "He was every American boy's hero, including mine."

  "I am comforted, as are all New Yorkers, that we informed him before he died that the West Side Highway will be renamed the Joe DiMaggio Highway. As long is baseball is played, Joe DiMaggio will exemplify the very best."

  "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? His life demonstrated to all the strivers and seekers — like me — that America would make a place for true excellence whatever its color or accent or origin."

  "Joe DiMaggio reminds us of a time when heroes were heroes. We will truly miss this hero."

  "One of the high points in my life was meeting Joe DiMaggio at a lunch in the Bronx. He signed a picture for me, and now it hangs in my office. This was a man who for two generations defined grace."

  "The ovation he got last year at Yankee Stadium was the biggest ovation I ever saw for a ballplayer. Joe said, 'Well, maybe they think it's the last time they're going to see me.' He was the class of class."

  "Joe DiMaggio has now graduated from the House That Ruth Built to the House That God Built. I will never forget the great thrill I experienced watching Joe DiMaggio play ball when my father took my brother and I to our first Yankee game during the 1940s."

  "Joe DiMaggio was one of the truly great legends of this century. Everyone will miss him."

  "What a legend, and what a role model. For Italian-Americans he was a true role model, not Hollywood's kind of role model. He was a great athlete and a perfect gentleman."

  "I went up to him, introduced myself and told of having watched him at the Stadium these many years ago. 'But I have tell you,' I added, 'Lou Gehrig was my hero.' 'He was my hero, too,' said Joe."

  "In this century, there have been three baseball players who transcended their sport to become part of American legend. Where Babe Ruth was known for his power and Jackie Robinson was known for his courage, Joe DiMaggio was known for dignity and grace."

  "Like his many fans across America, and indeed around the world, the Yankees are deeply saddened by the passing of Joe DiMaggio, one of our own and one of the greatest of all time. It was the class and dignity with which he led his life that made him part of all of us."

  "His persona extended beyond the playing field and touched all our hearts. In many respects, as an immigrant's son he represented the hopes and ideals of our great country."

  "He was a legend. I had the opportunity to meet him a number of times and I was in awe of him and his abilities. An era has ended with his death."

  "I followed him very closely throughout his career and I always felt that he was a model of professionalism that any athlete in any sport would do well to attempt to emulate."

  "He was a ballplayer's ballplayer and always conducted himself with dignity."

  "I'm glad I got to meet Joe . . . I'll never forget that last day at The Stadium when they gave him those nine rings he'd lost. He came into the clubhouse and said to me, 'Check out these rings.' I told him, 'Turn your back, Joe, so I can leave with 'em."

  "He was the kind of guy that exemplified what a major leaguer should be like, and act like and play like. . . . He played the game with so much intensity. He played the game with pride. He wore the Yankee uniform with dignity and character."

  "I knew him well enough to say, 'Hey, Joe, how are you?' It was like a special hello from him when he said hello because he knew I was in the same fraternity. There's levels of Hall of Famers. There's the elite of Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle (and DiMaggio).

  "It's a great loss. . . . He's a legend. . . . What else can I add to Joe D? He was what the Yankees were all about: championship, class. Just him walking by said it all."

  "I don't know how much regular people know about him but to me, he's a superhero and he'll always be a hero.

  "DiMaggio, the consummate gentleman on and off the field, fought his illness as hard as he played the game of baseball and with the same dignity, style and grace with which he lived his life."

  "I remember going to Yankee Stadium and watching him as a kid, watching him take outfield practice, infield practice. That was in the '30s. It cost 50 cents to sit in the outfield bleachers. He was the idol of all Italians."

  "As a kid growing up in New York, I remember all the street-corner arguements about Mantle and Mays, and invariably, somebody from my father's generation would chime in with 'Hey, Willie's great, and Mickey can hit a ball over a building, but you never saw DiMaggio, kid.' "

  "He was baseball royalty."

  "When I was a boy it seemed that the sun rose on DiMaggio in centerfield."

  "The game of baseball has lost its greatest ambassador in JoeDiMaggio. The very mention of his name personifies class, dignity, elegance and professionalism both on and off the field. A true gentlemen, he will always be the standard to which all great baseball players are measured."

  "Everyone always said playing baseball he looked good doing it. I think that's how lived life. He looked good doing it.

  "We certainly lost a baseball legend. He was a friend of ours and a wonderful friend of the game. We lost a very fine man today."

Joltin' Joe's Final Days

Here is a timeline of Joe DiMaggio's final days:

Oct. 12, 1998: Quietly admitted to Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Fla., after having difficulty breathing.

Oct. 16: Sources report DiMaggio transferred to intensive care unit after undergoing unspecified operation. He'll miss opening of World Series between Yankees and San Diego Padres. Hospital officials decline to even acknowledge he's a patient — the beginning of months of confusion about severity of DiMaggio's condition.

Oct. 17: DiMaggio reported to be in critical condition. Doctors remove fluid from his lungs following a bout with pneumonia. Sources say tests reveal no evidence of cancer. Long-time friend and lawyer Morris Engelberg says DiMaggio is fine and "tough as ever."

Oct. 18: Engelberg predicts DiMaggio will be released in a few days but minor surgery required to drain fluid from lungs. He says DiMaggio will throw out first ball at next year's World Series.

Oct. 21: After Yankees go 2-up on Padres, Engelberg says DiMaggio will have to stay in hospital a few more days.

Oct. 24: Thousands offer moment of silent prayer during Yanks' Series victory celebration at City Hall.

Oct. 29: Engelberg admits DiMaggio was more seriously ill than previously reported, but says he's rallied dramatically in last 10 days. He now hopes DiMaggio will be out of hospital in time to celebrate his 84th birthday Nov. 25. Other sources say DiMaggio faces uphill struggle against serious lung infection requiring draining of more fluid.

Nov. 7: Engelberg says DiMaggio, who remains in intensive care, might have to stay in hospital an additional four to six weeks, if not longer.

Nov. 14: Head of medical team breaks silence and says Joe D seems "on his way to recovery." Dr. Earl Barron says DiMag's fever is gone, and that blood pressure and heart function are good.

Nov. 15: Engelberg news release says "Mr. DiMaggio's privacy is to be protected at all times, and he considers matters related to his health to be personal and private."

Nov. 25: As DiMaggio celebrates 84th birthday in hospital, Engelberg denies report from friends that DiMaggio had suffered a heart attack.

Nov. 26: DiMaggio physician reveals that a cancerous tumor was removed from DiMaggio's lung in October, and that he was so near death 10 days ago that a priest was called to give last rites. "It was not disclosed because of his wishes," Barron says, adding that DiMaggio will remain in hospital at least two more weeks.

Dec. 9: DiMaggio mounts remarkable comeback. Condition had become so grim his family was called to his bedside. But overnight he gets better. "Don't ask me how or why," Barron says. "He's remarkably better."

Dec. 10: Engelberg says DiMaggio on life support and getting nourishment intravenously. He announces that he, as Joe D's designated health surrogate, will not sign a "do-not-resuscitate" order because "miracles do happen."

Dec. 12: DiMaggio lapses into coma, only to miraculously awake several hours later. "Nothing surprises me with this guy anymore," says Barron. Engelberg says DiMaggio will not be revived if his heart stops: "We want him to die with dignity."

Jan. 19, 1999: After 99 days in intensive care, DiMaggio is secretively released and sent home. Nurses will monitor him around the clock. It is "a great moment in Yankee history," Yankees owner George Steinbrenner says. DiMaggio is confident he'll recover enough to throw out first ball in Yanks' season opener in April.

Jan. 25: NBC News sends out false bulletin that DiMaggio has died.

March 8: Joe DiMaggio dies at his home. An extraordinary medical saga, and a great life, comes to an end.

DiMaggio's Magic Moments

Nov. 25, 1914 — Joseph Paul DiMaggio born to Giuseppe and Rosalie DiMaggio in Martinez, Calif.

Oct. 1, 1932 — On the same day that Babe Ruth hit his famous "Called Shot," in New York, 17-year-old DiMaggio, who had dropped out of high school, played in his first professional game for the Seals of the Pacific Coast League. In his first at-bat as an unpaid shortstop he hit a triple.

July 26, 1933 — The 18-year-old DiMaggio had his record-setting, consecutive-game minor league hitting streak halted at 61 games. He batted .340 for the season.

Nov. 21, 1934 — Even though he injured his knee getting out of a jitney and was called damaged goods, the New York Yankees purchased DiMaggio for $25,000 and five players, but arranged for him to play in the minor leagues for another year.

1935 — In his last minor league season, DiMaggio batted .398, and hit 34 home runs as the Seals won the PCL. DiMaggio named league MVP.

May 3, 1936 — After missing the first 15 games of the season because of a burned foot from a heat-therapy machine, the 21-year-old DiMaggio debuted with the Yankees. In the 14-5 win over the St. Louis Browns, DiMaggio tripled, hit two singles and scored three runs.

May 6, 1936 — DiMaggio hit his first major league home run, a 400-foot shot off Philadelphia Athletics' pitcher George Turbeville at Yankee Stadium.

June 23, 1936 — In Chicago, DiMaggio became one of three Yankees to hit two home runs in one inning.

Oct. 1936 — Won his first World Series ring. DiMaggio helped the Yankees to a 102-51 record, winning the AL pennant by 191Ú2 games. He hit .346 in the Series against the Giants. His rookie season, he hit .323, fielded .978 and was named an All-Star.

June 13, 1937 — Had three home runs against St. Louis, a feat he would manage to do two more times in his career. He won the year's home run title with 46 and led the Yankees past the Giants in the World Series again.

April 1938 — DiMaggio made his only public faux pas, holding out for more than the $25,000 salary he would eventually accept. Fans in Yankee Stadium booed him when he finally returned to the pinstripes, but he won back their hearts when he hit .324 with 32 homers and 140 RBIs and helped the Yankees sweep the Cubs in the World Series.

Oct. 1939 — DiMaggio was named AL MVP and won the first of his two AL batting titles. He hit .381 in 462 at-bats on 120 games, scored 108 runs, had 176 hits, including 30 homers, and 126 RBIs. With the Yankees' sweep of the Reds in the World Series, DiMaggio was the only player in the history of baseball to win the pennant and the World Series in his first four years in the major leagues.

Nov. 1939 — "In the biggest public wedding ever seen in San Francisco" DiMaggio married starlet Dorothy Arnold as 20,000 fans mobbed the cathedral. She would have his only child, before they divorced in 1994.

Oct. 1940 — DiMaggio defended his title as batting champion with a .352 average in 132 games with 179 hits, including 31 homers, and 133 RBIs.

May 15, 1941 — DiMaggio's run-scoring single in the first inning of a loss to Chicago began his historic hitting streak.

July 17, 1941 — Cleveland shortstop Lou Boudreau threw out him at first to end his streak of hitting safely in 56 consecutive games.

Oct. 1941 — After leading the Yanks to a 4-1 World Series win over the Dodgers, DiMaggio was named MVP and RBI champion after driving in 125 runs.

Oct. 1942 — The only year a DiMaggio-led Yankee team lost in the World Series, when the Cardinals beat them 4-1.

Feb. 17, 1943 — DiMaggio volunteered for the military, putting baseball on hold for three years. He rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant, but spent most of his three seasons away from baseball in a military hospital with ulcers.

Oct. 1946 — Still recovering from ulcers, DiMaggio's batting averaged slipped below .300 for the first of only two seasons in his 13-year career. He hit .290 with 25 home runs in 132 games.

Oct. 1947 — Finished the season with a .315 batting average. He was named AL MVP for the third time and led the Yankees to a 4-3 victory in the Subway World Series over the Dodgers.

May 23, 1948 — In Cleveland, DiMaggio hits three homers in a game.

Oct. 1948 — Watched younger brother Dominic help the Red Sox edge out Yankees for the AL pennant. Joe was still the league MVP and HR champion with a 39-home run year.

Oct. 1, 1949 — Recovering from a heal injury, having not swung a bat in over a month, DiMaggio hit four homers in three games against the Red Sox to clinch the AL pennant. He led the Yankees in a 4-1 win over the Dodgers to win the World Series. The Yankees held the first Joe DiMaggio Day at Yankee Stadium, where the Yankee Clipper said, "I want to thank God for making me a Yankee."

Sept. 1950 — DiMaggio marked the 2,000th hit of his major league career.

Oct. 1950 — DiMaggio batted .370 in the final six weeks to finish with a .301 average on the season. He hit 32 homers and 122 RBIs. The Yankees swept the Phillies 4-0 in World Series.

Dec. 11, 1951 — Saying that injuries were prohibiting him from producing the baseball that his teammates and loyal fans deserved, DiMaggio announced his retirement. He had a lifetime batting average of .325 and hit 361 home runs in 1,736 games. He had played in 10 World Series and 11 All-Star games.

Jan. 4, 1954 — Married film star Marilyn Monroe in San Francisco City Hall. They divorced in October.

July 25, 1955 — Four years after retiring, DiMaggio was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Sept. 27, 1998 — Joe DiMaggio Day at Yankee Stadium. He was presented with replicas of nine World Series rings that were stolen.

Oct. 12, 1998 — Taken to the hospital in Florida for surgery.

  The passing of the Yankee Clipper has triggered a run on Joe DiMaggio memorabilia.

  Josh Evans of Lelands auction house in Manhattan said yesterday that the price of DiMaggio autographs had doubled overnight to $400.

  "Since DiMaggio has been sick, his memorabilia has gone up 50%," said Evans.

  He said he anticipates a bidding frenzy for a March 25 auction featuring a 1939 road jersey worn by DiMaggio.

  "The minimum bid is $25,000, but this should go for at least $50,000, and that's being conservative," Evans said. "Five years ago we sold a DiMaggio jersey for $130,000."

  The jersey being offered this month was worn by DiMaggio in 1939, his first MVP season. The Yankee Clipper wore it in the World Series that year.

  "It's the prize of this upcoming auction," Evans said. "It's in beautiful condition."

  The gray, woolen jersey, with DiMaggio's No. 5 sewn on the back, is being offered by Edward Sanders, 40, of Suffolk County, whose father, a New Jersey semi-pro pitcher, received it from the Yankee great back in 1939.

  "My father was the same size as DiMaggio, and so my father got one of Joe's jerseys," Sanders said.

  He said he hopes it will fetch enough to put his two children, ages 13 and 10, through college.

  "It's been very emotional to think about parting with the uniform," said Sanders, a mortgage banker whose father gave him the jersey before he died four years ago. "I've gone back and forth on this a number of times."

  Arlan Ettinger of Guernsey's Auction, which pushed the memorabilia market to a new level in January when it sold Mark McGwire's 70th home run ball for $3 million, said prices for DiMaggio goods no doubt will climb.

  "Will a premium be placed on items that pertain to Joe DiMaggio's career? Sure," Ettinger predicted.

  He said DiMaggio artifacts will be sought after because the Yankee Clipper transcended athletics to become an all-American icon who had popular songs written about him.

  "He was as close to an American hero as it gets," Ettinger said. "He was a clean-living, well-mannered man."

  Some of the most wanted DiMaggio items are off the market and in the Baseball Hall of Fame in upstate Cooperstown, where crowds flocked yesterday to see Joe D's old Yankee locker and the uniform he wore in 1951, his last season.

  The hall also has the pen DiMaggio used to sign major league baseball's first $100,000 contract.

  Missing from the Hall of Fame, however, are any of the balls DiMaggio clubbed for base hits during his 56-game hitting streak of 1941.

  "I have never seen a ball from the streak," said Evans, explaining that such an item would be worth a fortune. "I've seen programs and other items from the games, but I've never seen any of the balls."

  Julio Pabon, owner of Latino Sports memorabilia shop in the South Bronx, said his phone was ringing off the hook yesterday with fans seeking anything with DiMaggio's No. 5 on it.

  "We don't have anything on him," said Pabon. "We had some video tapes on Yankee history, which included DiMaggio, but they're all sold out."

  Richard Simon, of Richard Simon Sports Inc. in Manhattan, warned consumers to be careful of what they buy and said they should not expect any bargains on DiMaggio memorabilia.

  "He signed a lot of stuff, but you'll see a ton of forgeries on the Internet," Simon said. "I would tell people that if it sounds like a bargain, it's not

  News of Joe DiMaggio's death spurred a mix of sadness and fond remembrance yesterday. But at Legends Field, site of the Yankee's spring training complex, DiMaggio's pinstriped successors had distinctive takes on a man who had made his name long before most of them were born but whose legend and influence has never stopped growing.

  "I was a huge Yankee fan growing up, and Joe DiMaggio, what he stood for, was much more than baseball," Derek Jeter said. "The mystique about him, the way he carried himself on and off the field. He played hard every day out. You don't necessarily have to be a baseball fan to appreciate him."

  "He will always be one of the great legends of the Yankee mystique and all of baseball," Tino Martinez said. "When he'd come around Yankee Stadium it was one of those awe-inspiring sights. Everyone stopped and looked at him. He was a living legend. It's always sad when someone like him passes, but it does give everyone a chance to recall a lot of great memories."

  Equipment manager Rob Cucuzza stitched the numeral 5 on the left sleeves of each Yankees jersey in time for last night's exhibition game against the Phillies.

  Fans straggled in and left flowers at the garden outside the stadium, which commemorates Yankees whose numbers have been retired. The team placed a Leroy Neiman painting of DiMaggio behind his plaque and a beautiful wreath around it.

  One card attached to a bouquet of flowers read, "With every roar of the crowd and flight of the ball, your dedication, commitment and love to the game of baseball will live on forever. Thank you for the memories. Love, The Fans."

  Joe Torre remembered the ovations DiMaggio always received when he stepped out of the dugout at Yankee Stadium.

  "Most of those people never even saw him play," Torre said. "To me, that is the ultimate respect and the height of a compliment."

  Inside the clubhouse, several Yankees reverently shared their memories.

  "He probably is the greatest Yankee ever. The Yankee Clipper," Darryl Strawberry said. "He's definitely one of the guys that are way above the game."

  "I'm very proud of the fact that I have the opportunity to play the position he played for so many years here," Bernie Williams said. "In my own way, I'll try to carry on the winning tradition those guys established."

  Several Yankees — Strawberry, Derek Jeter and David Cone among them — said they never could get up the nerve to intrude on DiMaggio's privacy for autographs.

  "I was too afraid," Cone said. "So I actually bought about a dozen balls through a collector."

  The Yankees had lunch at Gracie Mansion following the 1996 World Series parade. There was one open seat at the table where Andy Pettitte and his wife were. DiMaggio came and sat down.

  "I heard things about him being unapproachable or whatever, but he was very nice to us," Pettitte said. "It already was a day I was never going to forget. That just was kind of like the icing for me."

  Joe Girardi talked proudly of a picture hanging in his home of himself with DiMaggio following a first-pitch ceremony at the Stadium in recent years.

  "He was there probably eight or nine times in my three years here and it was always very exciting," Girardi said. There I was catching one of the all-time greatest players. I just remember it was always very neat and there was always a certain buzz when he was around. It's a little sad, a lot of great Yankee legends have passed on or gotten sick in the last couple of years. You wish they could live forever."

  It was DiMaggio's class that set him apart, most people seemed to feel at his passing. But Chili Davis wouldn't let them forget one important point. "Ten World Series in 13 years," he said, "pretty much says it all

  You could almost forget he was a ballplayer. There was always something more to Joe DiMaggio. Something that went beyond sports, beyond Hollywood, and reminded Americans of the better angels of their natures and the better times in their lives.

  Mere mention of his name recalled good old days when men fought the good fight and won the Good War; radio days when there was still something left to the imagination, when not every pore had been exposed to television closeups and every kiss told to "Hard Copy"; glory days when showing up an opponent brought scorn rather than multimillion dollar endorsement contracts.

  That something in DiMaggio inspired more than the juvenile idolatry bestowed on too many athletes and celebrities.

  It inspired paintings and music and literature.

  Paul Simon's phrase "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?" endures as a symbol of the 1960s just as his 56-game hitting streak captures the dawn of the 1940s.

  The idea of "the great DiMaggio" served Ernest Hemingway in "The Old Man and the Sea."

  DiMaggio's carriage and dress provoked clothier William Taub, the Mr. Blackwell of his day, to remark: "That DiMaggio is a poem."

  Long after his playing days, he captured the love of perhaps the most desired woman of the century, Marilyn Monroe, but showed the good grace and decency to keep his bedroom door closed.

  In later years, as biographers sought an audience with the man, only to be greeted with a firm but polite "No, thank you," a mystique grew.

  As time passed, that mystique sometimes overshadowed his achievements on the field. That was a pity. Because DiMaggio, after all, was first and foremost a ballplayer, and as much as it's possible in a child's game, an artist.

  The personification of Yankee tradition, he linked Ruth and Gehrig to Mantle, and made the time between, from 1936-51, his own. Not merely a slugger like the other Yankee monuments, DiMaggio was something else: consistency.

  He could hit home runs, certainly, but more than that, he was an unrelenting presence, whether at the plate — where pitchers complained they just couldn't get him out — or in the field or on the basepaths, where teammates swore they never saw him make a mental error.

  "He never missed a sign, he never threw to the wrong base," said his first major league manager, Joe McCarthy.

  His hitting streak won't be broken. Period. And whoever else may play center field at Yankee Stadium, it's doubtful they'll match DiMaggio's career .325 batting average, 361 home runs, 2,200 hits or three MVPs.

  Nor will they match his victories. Whatever else DiMaggio accomplished, he always won. Always. In his 13-year career, his Yankees made it to 10 World Series. They won nine of them.

  He was not the greatest hitter in the game, nor even of his time. That designation belongs to Ted Williams. But DiMaggio is the man who most managers would choose in a sandlot game. Williams' teams never won a championship. DiMaggio's scarcely did anything else.

  But he was not an automaton. Part of DiMaggio's legend stems from his frequent physical weakness, and his ability to press on through injury, often in dramatic fashion.

  After missing the first 2 1/2 months of the 1949 season with a mysterious heel injury that had people wondering if he'd ever play again, and with the Yankees engaged in a glorious pennant race with Boston, an aging DiMaggio made his debut at Fenway Park on June 28 — and almost single-handedly demolished the Red Sox. Rusty and out of shape, DiMaggio hit four homers and drove in nine runs in a three-game sweep, inspiring Sox fans — whose hatred of all things Yankee is a birthright — to shower him with cheers. A biplane dragged a banner across the sky that read, "The Great DiMaggio."

  Forty-seven years after his last game, he could still pack a house. The Yankees hastily scheduled a tribute to him on the final day of their magical 1998 regular season, and he once again threw out the first pitch. The crowd was a near sellout. Even today's fans, many blase about history, could not pass up a final opportunity to look upon greatness.

  DiMaggio the symbol came along at a time when we needed him most, in the heart of a depression. As a symbol he endured through a war, a Cold War, a countercultural and a technological revolution — even a canceled World Series. When instability seemed the only constant, people could still look to Joe DiMaggio, solid as Mount Rushmore.

  He is sainted, seen in one book as "The Last American Knight." But DiMaggio wasn't perfect. It's easy to forget now, but in his day, he was sometimes portrayed as a sullen loner, at best guarded, at worst a bit arrogant.

  His legion of defenders attributed it to shyness, to a man uncomfortable with celebrity. Whatever the reason, DiMaggio rarely let anyone in, not even teammates. Mickey Mantle recalled being intimidated by the aloof veteran during his rookie year.

  For all his association with a simpler time, those halcyon days "when it was a game," DiMaggio was a businessman, and a shrewd one. He pioneered the contract holdout and was not averse to missing part of spring training to help win a battle of a few thousand dollars with the tight-fisted Yankee management. He knew his worth.

  For all his mystique, and as much as he's been celebrated by the smart set, DiMaggio himself was no intellectual. His reading matter of choice was comic books and pulp westerns.

  And as worldly as he seemed, in certain ways DiMaggio always remained an humble immigrant fisherman's son. He preferred hovering near his family in San Francisco over almost anything else, and it is said that part of the reason for his divorce from Monroe was his desire for her to be a "traditional" wife — one who stayed home and cooked dinner.

  Yet if there was a simplicity to DiMaggio, it served him well, grounding him as the rest of the world spun out of control.

  When Monroe died, DiMaggio was the only one caring enough to arrange her funeral.

  His later years were truly golden, sprinkled with visits to old-timers' games, opening days and Yankee parades — a calm, enjoyable denouement to a life lived in, but not leered at by, the public eye.

  Casey Stengel, his manager in his later years, once said DiMaggio was the best player he'd ever seen, better than Babe Ruth. And Stengel didn't much like DiMaggio.

  But if DiMaggio reciprocated that feeling, for Stengel or anyone else, he never made it known, not publicly, anyway.

  The good sense to keep his mouth shut was part of the enduring, timeless quality of DiMaggio.They had a word for that quality in the 1940s.

  Back then, they called it class.

  The Bay 

I  t's America's oldest story. A daring young man takes a chance and takes his wife to the United States, where together they work hard, sacrifice and watch as their children become more like the New World than the old.

  Giuseppe DiMaggio and Rosalie Mercurio were married and immigrated from Isola Della Femmine, Italy, to Northern California around the turn of the century.

  The family settled for a time in Martinez, Calif. Giuseppe got work as a fisherman, and he and his wife reared nine children. Joseph Paul DiMaggio, the second to last, was born Nov. 25, 1914, and the next year, the family moved to the Italian enclave of San Francisco, North Beach.

  "We had some tough times," Joe said in 1949. "But there was always enough bread in the house."

  Tom and Mike, Joe's oldest brothers, did as expected and helped their father on his boat. But the younger boys, Vince, Joe and Dominic — the youngest — had other pursuits on their minds.

  The boy who would become the Yankee Clipper attended San Francisco's Galileo High School, but not enough to earn a diploma. "Joe DiMaggio played his first game of baseball at the age of 10, in 1924. He didn't really like the sport, preferring tennis, and nearly abandoned the national pastime when he was 14. But his older brother, Vince, was good, and everyone had seen that young Joe could play, too.

  By the time he was 17, he was offered minor league tryouts with both the San Francisco Missions and the rival San Francisco Seals — whom Vince had recently signed with.

  He chose the Seals, and hit a triple his first time up, starting a pattern that endure throughout his career.

  It was not long before the baseball world knew his name. In his first full pro season, DiMaggio hit .340 with 28 home runs and 169 RBI in 187 games, and drew public notice with a record 61-game hitting streak.

  In his autobiography, DiMaggio recalls that during the 43rd game of that streak, he hit a curve for a double off Tom Sheehan, an aging former big leaguer. "Son, you hit my curve ball when I didn't want you to," Sheehan said. "A fellow who can do that belongs in the big leagues."

  In May of '33, the Sporting News recognized DiMaggio for the first time. "

  In August, the "baseball bible" began spelling his name right.

  The next season marked the first of his frequent bouts with injury. Stepping off a jitney on the way to his sister's house, he felt his left knee "pop like a pistol." He played 86 fewer games than the previous season, and though he hit .341 with 12 homers and 69 RBI, several major league teams apparently backed off purchasing his contract from the Seals.

  "Once you had a bad leg, it was nearly impossible to get a major-league club to take a chance on you," said the umpire Jocko Conlon in his autobiography. "The only one I can remember back then who did get a chance was Joe DiMaggio."

  The Yankees kept faith. For $25,000 and the rights to five players, they bought his contract from San Francisco.

  DiMaggio played one more season for the Seals in 1935, and proved the Yanks right, hitting .398 with 49 doubles and 34 homers, and stole 24 bases in 25 attempts.

  New York hadn't won a pennant since 1932. Babe Ruth had left the team in 1934. By the end of 1935, the Yanks were ready for Joe DiMaggio. And he was ready for them.

The Show

  In the Yankees spring training of 1936, DiMaggio immediately began making headlines as the next Babe Ruth.

  The Daily News asked Ruth himself to weigh in. The Babe said he hoped the kid would have a great season. "He first must show something in the Stadium," he cautioned. "Only one out of a hundred makes good, and they all look like a million dollars under a palm tree."

  The writers liked DiMaggio as soon as they saw him, even if he wasn't the greatest quote, and didn't know what a quote was. "Every time they'd want to talk to me," DiMaggio later said, "I'd kind of freeze up."

  Joe McCarthy, the Yanks crusty manager, decided the rookie would start. The question was where. But the decision was delayed when DiMaggio blistered his foot using something called a heat diathermy machine to treat soreness.

  It delayed his Yankee debut until May 3, when he batted third and wore No. 9 — not the No. 5 he would retire. His first time up, he hit a triple, and it was just the start of an awesome rookie season: 202 hits, 29 homers, a .323 average and 125 RBI.

  The team was back in the World Series, and DiMaggio was right at home, hitting .346 in the 4-2 series victory over the Giants.

  From the start, he was in the middle of history. At the end of Game 1 of that series, played in the Polo Grounds, Franklin Roosevelt was watching. The PA announced that after the final out, spectators should remain seated until FDR had been driven from the field in his car.

  With two out in the bottom of the ninth, the Giants' Hank Lieber smashed the ball to dead center — 450 feet away — but incredibly, DiMaggio tracked it down for the final out.

  And froze, waiting for the president.

  Roosevelt gave him the high sign as he exited the stadium.

  The next season was an encore. Though he held out for part of spring training and doubled his salary to $17,500, and missed the season opener — again — with infected teeth and tonsils. But he roared through the American League with a .346 average and an AL-leading 46 home runs. Once again, the Yankees won the Series over the Giants.

  His best friend on the team was Vernon "Lefty" Gomez, a veteran and a jokester — the kind of person the shy, quiet DiMaggio gravitated to. In his later years, Joe D. was close with Billy Martin.

  DiMaggio's manager, McCarthy, fit him like one of his dapper suits. "He did everything so easily," McCarthy said of DiMaggio. "You never saw him dive for a ball. He didn't have to. He was already there to catch it."

  DiMaggio's only rough period with fans came in 1938. He held out again, this time for $40,000, and the team countered with $25,000. He missed the first part of the season, and this time was roundly jeered by fans and media.

  As the year went on, Dimaggio hit .324, and the Yanks swept to yet another title, most of the controversy was forgotten. But as DiMaggio once recalled, "All I ever heard were the boos."

  He erased the boos for good in 1939: another brilliant season, another World title, and his first MVP.

  An individual play that year built his legend: a stupendous catch off Detroit slugger Hank Greenberg the Stadium's old Death Valley in left-centerfield. "It's hard to believe that a fellow could hit a ball as high and as far as Greenberg did and have it caught," said Spud Chandler, the Yankee pitcher, recalling the moment for the writer Donald Honig.

  "Greenberg was at second base — that's how far he'd run before it came down . . . DiMaggio took off with the crack of the bat, on a dead run ... He just seemed to have it in his head where the ball was going to come down. Right at the fence, at the 460 mark, he just flicked out his glove and caught the ball."

  Most amazing, Chandler said, "Nothing was at stake. But that's the way Joe played ball — everything was at stake for him, all the time."

  DiMaggio was famous now, a superstar before the word existed. In 1939 he made the Taub's list of 10 best-dressed men. When he was married to his first wife, Dorothy Arnold, on Nov. 19 of that year, 20,000 people showed up around the San Francisco cathedral.

  No longer the naive 21-year-old rookie, he was part of the Manhattan scene, hanging out with restaurateur Toots Shor. He had another fine year in 1940, winning his second batting title (.352), but for the first time in his career, the team failed to make the World Series.

  It turned out to be the calm before the storybook.

The Streak

  America was nervous in 1941. Hitler threatened the whole of Europe, bombing London and invading Russia. Japan menaced the Pacific. War was almost certain.

  "It is the cusplike quality of 1941, before any real recognition of the outrages then in embryo — the total Holocaust in Europe and the dawn of the atomic age — that helps account for (its) nostalgic strength," writes Michael Seidel in his chronicle of the streak.

  Preparing for war and drifting into a frightening future, the United States needed an anchor. DiMaggio gave it one.

  He hit safely in 56 straight games.

  What better person than DiMaggio — "close-mouthed, confident, steel-nerved," in Newsweek's phrase — for a nervous nation to look to?

  It started May 15. DiMaggio had been stuck in an awful slump, hitting .184 his previous 20 games. The Yankees were 51Ú2 games out, but seemed much worse. They lost this game, too, 13-1 to the White Sox.

  But DiMaggio drove in the lone run in the first inning, with a solid shot to center that scored Phil Rizzuto.

  By Game 18, the rest of the nation had followed the Daily News' lead and picked up on the streak.

  It was history, full of drama and coincidence.

  Two days after Hitler invaded Russia, DiMaggio saved the streak at 36 with an eighth-inning single. Asked if he thought it jinxed him to talk about it, the Clipper said, "Heck, no. Voodoo isn't going to stop me. A pitcher will."

  The streak broke records — George Sisler's 41, Willie Keeler's 44 — and survived the theft of DiMaggio's bat by a pair of bozos from Newark, who ultimately gave it back.

  It made fans happy, and teammates tense. "Joe was calm, but every day after 44 I threw up my breakfast," said Lefty Gomez.

  It died in the glove of the Indians' Ken Keltner. Wiser for having been beaten by a shot down the line early in the streak, the Indians' third baseman made two great stops of DiMaggio shots to help end the streak on July 17, in the 57th game.

The Twilight

  In 1946, Joe DiMaggio was a 31-year-old man with ulcers. He'd spent three years in the Air Force, but the only action he saw was in exhibition baseball games on military bases.

  The Yankees now had new owners, a new manager, night baseball at home, and sometimes, air travel.

  DiMaggio vowed to loosen up. "I'm tired of being called a sourpuss," he said. "I want people to like me, and I try to like them."

  The '46 season was a dud. The Yankees finished third, and DiMaggio hit .290 with 25 homers, but only five after the first 41 games. Like the Yanks, he was rusty, and hurting — suffering from knee and heel maladies. If he had merely faded away, he would have still held a place in Yankee lore.

  But DiMaggio's last five seasons only added to his legacy.

  On Jan. 7, 1947, he had a three-inch bone spur removed from his heel. His arm went dead, and he only had one or two good throws left per game. Yet he still won his third MVP, leading the Yankees to another World Series title. He made just one error all year, and he had truly become the team's leader, not just its best player.

  He showed a human side, too, in Game 6 of the World Series, when Al Gionfriddo robbed him of a home run with a leaping grab at the 415-foot sign. For one of the few times in his career, DiMaggio showed frustration. He kicked the dirt around second base.

  He awed younger teammates like Tommy Henrich, who once said of him, "Joe was kind of a cold guy, the greatest ballplayer I ever saw and the most moral man I ever knew."

  When he could, he played. In '48, despite another bone spur, that felt "like someone driving an ice pick into my heel," he managed to lead the league in homers with 39 and drive in 155 runs.

  The pain set the stage for DiMaggio's glorious summer of '49. He had the spur removed, but no one, least of all DiMaggio, was sure if it would heal enough for him to come back.

  He was surly with reporters that spring. His father died May 3, and he had his day's equivalent of a stalker — a crazed woman who threatened to kill herself if he didn't requite her delusional love for him.

  But almost miraculously, after DiMaggio spent weeks in bed losing sleep, the heel healed. He geared himself to play for a June 28 series at Fenway.

  It may have been his finest hour. After not swinging a bat in an official game since October, he led the Yanks to three victories that changed the course of the pennant race, going 5-for-11 with four homers and nine RBI.

  Later in the mad dash for the title, DiMaggio missed most of the final two weeks of the season with pneumonia. But he came back for the final day, a doubleheader with Boston at the Stadium, to hit a single, a double and a triple as the Yanks won both to get to the World Series.

  It was Joe DiMaggio Day.

But such days were numbered. He hit .301 in 1950, but Stengel got him to play first base, which angered DiMaggio. His mother died that year, and he was lonely. "Everyone has a home and a family to go to," he told one reporter. "All I've got when I go back to my hotel tonight is an empty room and a box of fresh laundry on the bed."

  He could see his skills eroding. "Now when I get a hit," he said, "they send me telegrams."

  Still, the Yanks won another world championship.

  In the '51 Series, in the last at-bat of his career, he doubled. As he stood on second base, the Stadium cheered a long time.

  Joe DiMaggio retired Dec. 11, 1951. "I feel that I have reached a stage," he said, "where I can no longer produce for my ballclub, my manager, my teammates and my fans the sort of baseball their loyalty to me deserves."

The Husband

  As charmed as his playing career was, DiMaggio was not so lucky at love. Biographers agree that he was a better suitor and ex-husband than a husband. Both of his wives, Dorothy Arnold and Marilyn Monroe, were actresses who didn't seem cut out to be traditional, old-world wives — like DiMaggio's mother apparently had been. Late in his career, articles described his desire for a normal family life, like the one he grew up in. It was not to be.

  But DiMaggio's private life is in its own way a reflection on the stoicism of the public man.

  He met his first wife in 1937. Dorothy Arnold was a gorgeous actress from Duluth working on the movie "Manhattan Merry Go Round," a trivial enterprise with cameos by Cab Calloway and Jack Benny.

  The two began dating, and were married in 1939. They had a child in 1941, Joe Jr., whom the father doted on. But the pressures of a ballplayer's life proved too much for the marriage, as did DiMaggio's time in the service. They divorced in 1944. There were some attempts to reconcile, but by 1946 she had remarried.

  After his retirement, DiMaggio spent much of his time in San Francisco, chatting with friends and relaxing with his sisters and brothers.

  But his life began to change when he met Monroe, in the spring of 1952. David Marsh, a press agent, arranged a date between the budding actress and the old ballplayer.

  She was late and a bit distracted at first, the story goes, until Mickey Rooney showed up and started fawning over DiMaggio. Impressed, she took more of an interest, and they took a long ride together in her car that night.

  Within weeks, they were an item, but from the start there was friction with the sparks.

  Friends say DiMaggio advised Monroe to stop playing sexpot roles, which she tried to listen to, and sometimes belittled the whole Hollywood scene, which angered her. Yet he was sensitive. And honest. Almost alone among the men in her life, DiMaggio didn't exploit her.

  On Jan. 14, 1954, they married in a small City Hall ceremony in San Francisco.

  The union ignited a paparazzi party. "It could only happen here in America," panted the L.A. Times. "Both of them had to fight their way to fame and fortune and to each other; one in a birthday suit . . . the other in a baseball suit."

  After a humble honeymoon in California, they toured Japan together, setting off a frenzy. She entertained troops on leave from Korea; he gave baseball clinics. He hated the publicity; she loved it.

  "You've never heard such cheering," she supposedly said during the tour. As legend has it, he replied, "Yes, I have."

  He hated the parties she loved. Her dresser, Lena Pepitone, recalled that Monroe once said, "I had always been nothing, a nobody. Then I had the chance to be somebody. I couldn't give it up . . . not just to be a housewife, even Joe's housewife."

  On the September trip to New York where she shot her famous billowing-skirt publicity photos for "Seven Year Itch," the two had an argument, and he went home to California. A little more than a month later, the divorce was final.

  Just a few weeks later, DiMaggio visited Monroe in the hospital every day after she fell ill.

  It was not the last time she would rely on her ex-husband. DiMaggio stayed with her over Christmas of 1960, during a bout of depression in the wake of her failed marriage to playwright Arthur Miller.

  One Monroe friend said that in her apartment on E. 57th St., Monroe pasted a full-length pinup of DiMaggio inside her closet and looked at it daily.

  In 1961, she called him from the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, asking him for help in getting her out. She was always able to count on Joe, she said.

  They lived together again for a time. But they still fought. DiMaggio wanted no part of another marriage as long as she continued her career.

  She would rely on him even in death.

  After Monroe overdosed on Aug. 4, 1962, no one was there to arrange for her funeral, so DiMaggio did it — a simple ceremony, with few celebrities allowed.

  "He had always come through for her, and he came through again in the end, Lena Pepitone said.

  After her burial, DiMaggio sent flowers to her crypt every week until 1982.

  "Let us take our estimate of her worth," Norman Mailer wrote, "by the grief on Joe DiMaggio's face the day of that dread funeral in Westwood west of Hollywood."

The Eminence

  Since before World War II, DiMaggio has represented the heroic ideal of a ballplayer.

  His memorabilia is still a hot commodity, and there are still 11-year-old kids in New Rochelle who idolize him. In 1969, he was voted baseball's greatest living player, and he is on virtually every all-time all-star team.

  But the totality of DiMaggio went beyond sports: He is etched in American art and song and literature. He is credited with accelerating the acceptance of Italian immigrants into the mainstream of American life.

  Like Frank Sinatra, another legendary Italian-American, DiMaggio endured.

  Paul Simon's line, "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you," came to represent the lost bearings of an entire country during Vietnam.

  DiMaggio wasn't just a brilliant lyrical device; he's a wonderful novelistic one, too. He is a vital symbol, and in some ways, an active character in Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea."

  The title character's inspiration is the ballplayer — an indication of DiMaggio's impact on the culture, and a great touchstone for the wry Hemingway.

  Do you believe the great DiMaggio would stay with a fish as long as I will stay with this one? he thought. I am sure he would and more since he is young and strong. Also his father was a fisherman. But would the bone spur hurt him too much?

  "It has something to do with heroes," Simon once said of DiMaggio's artistic worth. "People who are all good and no bad in them at all. That's the way I always saw Joe DiMaggio."

  And there is a mountain of nonfiction devoted to him, some of it exceptional, such as David Halberstam's "Summer of '49" — the cover of which is graced by a painting of DiMaggio called "The Wide Swing" by Harvey Dinnerstein. All this despite the fact DiMaggio never cooperated with biographers, and refused ever to discuss Marilyn Monroe.

  He has been compared with Garbo, in fact, for his supposed wish to be alone. But DiMaggio's popularity waxed in his later years in part because he never disappeared. He showed up at Yankee events religiously, like a priceless relic, and gave a rousing speech at the 1996 ticker-tape parade celebrating the Yanks' World Series triumph.

  There was something regal about him, yes. But there was something real, too.

  One day a few years back, DiMaggio came into the sports department of the Daily News with deputy editor Bill Gallo, and truly, as the old song says, he was "just a man and not a freak." He was jovial and friendly to a group of young writers who gathered around.

  The greatest living ballplayer, who supposedly didn't have much use for reporters, greeted each one, shook hands firmly, looked them in the eye and smiled.

  "Hi," he said. "I'm Joe."