"The Great DiMaggio."

 

Hey guys, in view of the fact that there's no game tonight—and in view of what we may be seeing tomorrow night, I thought I'd burden you with an excerpt from my latest tome, due out next March from the good people at Knopf.

                                                                 June 28-30, 1949

Up in the Elysée Hotel, Joe DiMaggio had made an interesting discovery.  For months, he had been going quietly mad. Lying awake until five in the morning, wondering if he was done. Smoking endless cigarettes and sipping endless cups of coffee until his ulcers screamed, neglecting the steaks that Toots Shor sent over. Feeling guilty each time he cashed a new paycheck. Watching baseball on the snow-drenched TV, he even convinced himself that he had lost his eye, and couldn’t tell balls and strikes anymore. 

Dr. John Bennett, the orthopedist who operated on his bone spur had told him it was “a mysterious kind of thing.” One night, Joe might go to sleep and awake the next morning with no pain at all. But day after day, the heel felt like hell to walk on, felt warm to the touch.

Then one morning, it didn’t. Just like the doctor said: he put his foot down on the floor, and it felt fine. The heel was cool to the touch.

Joe snuck out with Gus Niarhos, the Yanks’ third-string catcher, and took batting practice until his hands were blistered and bloody. He found that he could dig in again.  Niarhos hit him a few flies, and the Dage was able to haul them down with no pain. The next day he played in the Mayor’s Trophy exhibition against the Giants, and was cheered to the rafters. He popped up four times, but nothing hurt. After the game, the team left for their series in Boston. Joe, still weak, stayed behind.

At lunch the next day, Toots Shor, urged him to go: “You look better strikin’ out than any of those crumb-bums hittin’ the ball.”

DiMaggio hesitated. He was not going anywhere, much less to Boston, to look foolish. But here was a chance to show up the new manager he loathed, show up his great rival on the Sox, Ted Williams—show up his little brother, Dom, Boston’s centerfielder. He caught the 3:15 flight to Logan Airport, arrived in the locker room and announced imperiously to a reporter—and not to Stengel—“Yeah, I’m going to play.”

Casey swallowed his annoyance and penciled him in fourth. His teammates were delighted—but some of them noted that the Sox were starting a fast, wild rookie named Mickey McDermott whom he hadn’t seen before, and cautioned him against playing. They didn’t want DiMaggio to look bad, either. But their fears only stoked his ferocity.

Almost 45 years earlier, another Yankees star had gone up to Boston against his manager’s better judgement, in the hope of pulling out a pennant. The move had backfired disastrously. But Joe DiMaggio was not Happy Jack Chesbro. He was an avenging immortal, swooping out of the sky to shower wrath upon his enemies.

Across the field, the Red Sox watched him walking with a limp, noticed the special padded shoe he wore with the spike removed from the heel, and were not impressed. One of them opined that DiMaggio wouldn’t be beating out any infield hits.

“You don’t know him,” lectured Joe McCarthy, who appeared to have fallen into a deep pall with DiMaggio’s appearance, Priam spying Achilles walking out of his tent. “You watch him the first time there’s a chance for an infield hit.  You watch how he runs.”

What followed was the crowning glory of Joe DiMaggio’s career. He got down two strikes to young, hard-throwing Mickey McDermott in the first inning, then fouled off six pitches. Finally, the rookie made one a little two good, and Joe lined it into left for a single, sparking a three-run rally. 

In the second, he took McDermott over the green leftfield wall for two more runs. Phil Rizzuto jumped up and down at the plate in excitement as he waited for the Dage to score.

Up in the stands, there was a stony silence. The Yankees’ bench, by contrast, was in fighting trim, outraged when Sox third baseman Johnny Pesky knocked Rizzuto silly trying to break up a double play. In the eighth, DiMaggio retaliated, ploughing into Sox shortstop Vern Stephens, tumbling him head over heels. In the ninth, the Sox still had a chance win, but Ted Williams hit a colossal, 400-foot fly to centerfield…where Joe DiMaggio hauled it in to end the contest.

The Dage had led his team in every aspect of the game—and he was just getting warmed up. The following day, the Sox got off to a 7-1 lead behind Ellis Kinder, one of their best pitchers. DiMaggio brought the Yanks back with a three-run smash to deep left-center, then won it in the eighth with a two-run homer. 

Casey came out of the dugout, salaaming in tribute as he crossed the plate, and this time not even the great man seemed to mind his clowning. In the lockerroom, the Yanks were celebrating as if they’d won the World Series, Joe laughing and joking with everyone.

Early in the final, Sunday afternoon of the series, a small plane appeared over Fenway, pulling a banner that read, THE GREAT DIMAGGIO. No one had to ask which one. The Sox started Mel Parnell, one of the very few lefties who ever learned to pitch consistently well in Fenway Park. It didn’t matter. DiMaggio hit a three-run homer in the seventh to clinch a 6-3 Yankees win, finishing with four home runs and nine ribbies on the weekend...