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It was Aug. 18, 1950. I had never seen Joe DiMaggio in person. To me and my friends, he wasn’t mere flesh and blood. He was DiMag, Joltin’ Joe, the Yankee Clipper. He lived in Manhattan and played for the New York Yankees, but he could have had a penthouse on Mount Olympus if he wanted. He was a legend, adored in all of our Italian-American households.
In those days, only the Athletics’ and Phillies’ Sunday home games were televised. And none of us had a TV yet anyway. He existed only in magazine cover photos and in play-by-play men’s excited voices on the radio. Not actually seeing him play only added to his legend. His home runs became more prodigious in the retelling — the grace with which he glided across the outfield was described in terms used for the ballet. It didn’t matter whether you rooted for the Yankees; if you were an 11-year-old Italian-American kid who didn’t even own a baseball glove, you loved DiMaggio. On this muggy August night, I was finally going to see him.
My cousin Nick was like an older brother to me. He had gotten a job as a vendor at Shibe Park (renamed Connie Mack Stadium in 1953). In those days, soda vendors carried a tank on their back and squirted the drink into a paper cup. The Athletics were not a very good team in 1950. Connie Mack, at the age of 88, was the team owner and also in his last year as manager. Crowds were small, even when the mighty Yankees came to town. The big attraction was supposed to be DiMaggio, but the vaunted star was struggling through an injury-plagued season. Coming into the game that night, things had gotten so bad for Joe that Yankee manager Casey Stengel had done the unthinkable. He had benched the great Joe D. for six straight games, while the proud Yankee seethed on the bench. We didn’t even know whether we would get a chance to see DiMaggio that night.
My cousin got me to the park around 5 p.m. and went off to get ready for work. He cautioned me to stick by the entrance to the nearby gate because that’s where the visiting team entered. “Maybe you’ll get a glimpse of DiMaggio,” I remember him saying. There were already a small group of admirers standing by the gate. In 1950 autographs were not the big deal they are now. Unlike kids today, I was not prepared with a pen and scorecard to get autographs. Until this day, I do not have a single autograph. Suddenly a bus pulled up and a group of dignified looking men in suits and ties got off. Without pausing to acknowledge the crowd, the players filed by us and that’s when I saw DiMaggio. His wavy hair was mostly silver with flecks of black. He wore a neatly tailored gray business suit. He could have been a Wall Street banker or a movie star or even the president (he looked more the part than President Harry Truman, a short bespectacled former haberdasher). But he was more important than any of these people — he was Joe DiMaggio. I could almost reach out and touch him. Of course I didn’t touch him (you can’t touch a deity). I didn’t shout to get his attention (a kid doesn’t disturb a deity). I just watched, speechless, as he passed me by without so much as a glance. Yet, I have never forgotten that memory. Hero worship is the last thing to die in old men.
Vic Raschi, a big bear of a right-hander, was pitching for the Yanks against a lefty for the Athletics by the name of Lou Brissie, who was a decorated war hero. In December 1944, Brissie was the victim of an artillery shell exploding nearby that shattered his left tibia in about 30 pieces. He was awarded the Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster and the Bronze Star. It took Brissie two years to get back to the big leagues during which he underwent 23 operations. Our hero DiMaggio had only volunteered for military service late in the war, and reportedly only after being forced to by public opinion and at the urging of his own wife. Joe D. never saw battle. Maybe it says something about hero-worshipping 11-year-olds or maybe it just says something about the sports fan in general, but somehow it was DiMaggio who was considered the hero, not the valiant Lou Brissie.
The game was tied 2-2 going into the ninth. DiMaggio was hitless in his first three at bats and had not hit a ball hard all night. The muggy August heat was stifling, and big moths flew bombing missions around the old ballpark as DiMaggio came to the plate. Brissie made a mistake and Joe D. launched a line drive into the left-centerfield seats. DiMaggio trotted slowly around the bases, vindicating his return to the lineup. The Yanks won 3-2 and later that year went on to beat the Phillies in four straight in the World Series that October.
DiMaggio retired from the game after the following season because of bad wheels. I never saw him play in person again.
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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