July 23, 2024 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, here to tell the story of the DiMaggio brothers is the 4-times New York Times bestselling author, Tom Clavin. He will be sharing stories from his book, The DiMaggios.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American Stories, and we tell stories about
everything here on this show. One of our favorite subjects
is the subject of sports. More than three hundred and
fifty sets of brothers have played in the major leagues
since the eighteen seventies, and we're talking about baseball. But
few have had the skill, the charisma, or the success
(00:31):
of the DiMaggio brothers, Jolton, Joe, dom and Vince. Here
to tell the story is the four time New York
Times bestseller author Tom Clavin. He'll be sharing stories from
his book The DiMaggio's Three Brothers, their passion for baseball
and their pursuit of the American dream.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Here's Claven.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
The demad Jo's is about family. That's the reason why
I wrote the book. It's dedicated to my own family.
I had actually turned down the opportunity to write the
Demaggios twice. I was not interested. I thought that Richard
ben Kramer had done the book on the Demaggio's because
of his biography of Joe Demagio in A Hero's Life.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I'm not a big fan of that book.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
But I figured it would be pretty thorough and what
else could I do. The third time that my agent
suggested that I do a book on the Demaggio's all
three brothers. I agreed to look into it, mostly just
so I could get him off my back and he
could stop suggesting that. And I started to do some research.
(01:35):
I mean, like most people, I maybe didn't even know
there were two other Demaggio brothers, or I knew that
there was Dominic in Boston, but I didn't know about
Vince at all. And it is kind of remarkable that
you had three brothers playing at the same time, not
unheard of. I mean, we know about the Elu brothers,
for example, and we had other brothers who have played
(01:57):
at the same time.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
With the Demaggio's.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
My first stop was, after doing some initial researches, I
made an appointment with Dominic Demaggio Junior and went up
to see him. He had taken over his father's factory
manufacturing business in the Boston area, and I went up
to see him and spent the day with him talking
about his father. And I came away realizing that and
(02:22):
many writers would not want to say something like this,
my agent was right. There was a terrific story here
and it went way beyond Joe Demaggio, which I was
very glad for because even though I was born and
raised a Yankees fan, my father's favorite player was Joe Demaggio. Again,
a Joe Demaggio biography didn't interest me, so I wrote
(02:45):
a book that really is from the viewpoint of family.
Giuseppe and Rosalie coming over from Italy, barely could speak English,
becoming a fisherman in the San Francisco area, raising nine children.
The last of home where Vincent Demaggio, Joe Demaggio and
the baby Dominic Demaggio. And those are the three that
(03:06):
became baseball players. They weren't carbon copies of each other.
They all three loved baseball. It's interesting that the Giuseppe
and Rosalie had had six children and then they had Vincent,
and Vincent was passionate about baseball, and he was talented.
And father Giuseppe forbade his children to play baseball. And
(03:31):
so when Joe was a teenager, he couldn't play, or
he had to play in secret. When Dominic was very young,
he couldn't play, or the mother would sometimes cover for them.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
But Vincent was very blatant about it.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
He wanted to play baseball, That's what he wanted to
do with his life, and when Giuseppe kept being oppositate
about it, but Vincent did as he ran away. Some
kids run away and joined the circus. Vincent ran away
to join a baseball team, and he started playing in
leagues up and down the up and down California, up
and down the West Coast into Oregon and Washington. Eventually
made it to the Pacific Coast League, which was almost
(04:05):
a Major League caliber. One of the enjoyments for me
of writing the book that demad Jo's was that all
three brothers played first the Pacific Coast League before going
onto the major leagues.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Vincent went off to play baseball, and he was gone
for about two years, and he came back to the
family home in the San Francisco area, and his father
basically had his arms crossed and said, so you come back.
You probably have no money and you've been a big failure,
and now you're ready to be a fisherman, just like
your father, just like your brothers, well two of the
(04:38):
brothers anyway, And instead Vincent reached into his pocket and
put something like six thousand dollars cash on the table.
That's why I earned playing baseball, and set he took
a look at that, and he went to Joe and
he said, what are you going to start playing baseball? Well,
Joe is ready, willing and able to jump right in.
And he also started playing for local teams and for
(04:59):
the Pacific Coast League, and he quickly out distance Vincent.
Now we should really give credit to Vincent here because
he had the courage to follow his dream. And it
was because of that the door got cracked open for
Joe Demagio. If it had not been for Vincent, we
would never might never know Joe Dematio a Hall of
Fame player, winner of nine World Series titles. So Joe
(05:22):
started to play in the Pacific Coast League and it
was in the Pacific Coast League that he had a
sixty one game hitting streak. I mean, we know about
the longer, the long hitting streak he had Major League Baseball,
but he had his longest one of his careers in
the Pacific Coast League. Meanwhile, Vincent does get called up
to the major leagues. I believe his first team he
(05:43):
played for was the Pittsburgh Pirates. He eventually played for
the Philadelphia Phillies, but it was with the Pirates that
he had a couple.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Of All Star seasons.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
He was a very good defensive outfielder, probably during his
years in the National League, the best center fielder in
the National League. And he was pretty decent hitter, and
he made the All Star team in a couple of years.
Joe came up with the Yankees in nineteen thirty six.
It was his rookie season, and he and DiMaggio were
on great Yankee teams that won the Pennant in thirty six,
(06:13):
thirty seven, thirty eight, thirty nine. You know, four straight Pennants,
four straight World Series. As it turned out too, so
Joe right away got used to winning, and he was
an All Star every year. And then what about Dominic Demagio,
the youngest one. He was call also nicknamed the Professor.
He had these thick glasses. Nobody thought of him as
a baseball player. He had to really go against a
(06:35):
lot of stereotypes to eventually work his way through the
Pacific Coast.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
League and then into.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Major League Baseball, where he was signed by the The
Yankees had a chance to sign him when they passed.
I didn't think he was, you know, anything like his brother,
and he was not Joe Demago, but he was Dominic Demago,
and he was a darn good ball player, and I
happened to think.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Should have been given more consideration for the Hall of.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Fame, But he was taken by the Boston Red Sox.
And he had had a nine All Star seasons. He
played thirteen seasons played from about nineteen forty to fifty
three fifty two, I think, and he made the All
Star Team nine seven times.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Excuse me.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Joe had made the All Star Team thirteen times and
Vincent twice, So he had the three brothers. Between the
three of them made twenty two All Star teams. That's
a remarkable level of achievement for any family, and their
careers took different paths. Now in Vincent's case, by the
time World War Two ended, he was done with baseball.
(07:36):
He still played, He just kept playing in less accomplished
than smaller leagues and eventually ended up back on the
West Coast. And he had a troubled post baseball career alcoholism,
having a hard time holding a job. So he's also
kind of like a story of the American dream that
the Demaggio family was. That his dream was to play baseball,
(08:00):
accomplished it. It was outside of baseball that he had trouble,
you know, dealing with life. Joe, as we know, was
a great leader of the Yankees. He did miss three
seasons because of World War Two. I discussed in the
books some of the controversy about that because he yet
to be sort of dragged, kicking and screaming into the
military service.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
But he is a guy who was about to make one.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Hundred thousand dollars and studies making two hundred and forty
dollars a month being in the army when he got out.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Of the service.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
When World War Two ended, the Yankees again won the
pennant in forty seven forty nine, fifty to fifty one.
Joe would diminishing skills and then he retired after the
fifty one season. But by this time Mickey Mannal was
on the Yankees and a new era began for the Yankees.
Joe had a pretty famous post baseball career. He was
(08:53):
always introduced as the greatest living ballplayer, much to the
detriment and lot of amusement of Ted Williams. When you
look at their respective statistics, Ted Williams far out distanced
Joe DiMaggio.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
He just didn't have nine World.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Series titles, and you're listening to Tom Claven and he's
sharing stories from his book The DiMaggio's Three Brothers, their
passion for baseball and their pursuit of the American Dream.
When we come back, more of the story of the
DiMaggio brothers here on our American Stories. And we continue
(09:41):
with the story of the DiMaggio brothers here on our
American Stories. Let's return to Tom Claven.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Joe and Dominic were very close brothers. They really loved
each other. They were also very fierce competitors, and it
didn't help that they were both considered the best set
of avails in the American League. In the case of
how they loved each other, I think one example is
the nineteen forty one season. It also shows that Ted
Williams cared so much for Dominic and for Joe too,
(10:09):
even though they were very much rivals. But in nineteen
forty one season, Joe was doing his fifty six game
hitting streak and out in the outfield when they were
at Fenway Park, he had Ted Williams and left and
Dominic in center. And usually in those days, games were
played in the daytime and it was hard for finding
out what was going on in the game that was
(10:31):
being played at the exact same time. So Ted basically
bribed the scorekeeper who was behind the green wall and
Fenway Park to listen to the radio or some kind
of way to get information from the New York game.
And whenever Joe got a hit, he would yell it
out to Ted, who in turn would yell it over
(10:52):
to Dominic in center field. And Dominic paid attention very
fiercely to every moment that he could get his hands
on the Joe Demago hitting streak. I think one way
that they were competitors is that one illustration of this,
in nineteen forty eight, the Yankees, the Indians, and the
Red Sox are all competing for the American League Pennant Yankee.
(11:13):
The Red Sox had won it in forty six, the
Yankees had won it in forty seven, and now you
had these upstart Indie Cleveland Indians. And as it happened,
Dominic had been dating a woman named Emily, and they
had made plans to marry, and they planned to get
married in October nineteen forty eight, and Joe Demago calls
(11:34):
his mother, and his mother is expressing some concern that
what happens if the Red Sox win the pennant and
Dominic won't be able to get married when he's supposed to,
and Joe says, don't worry, mom, I'll personally take care
of it, make sure Dominic's available for his wedding, And
sure enough, on the last weekend of the season, Joe
demolishes the Red Sox and the Cleveland Indians win the
(11:55):
pennant and the Dominic is sent home in time to
get married, with of course Joe as his best man.
I think another good example of their competitiveness is that
in nineteen forty nine, Dominic had a hitting streak of
his own going on. I mean, he ended up. Of
(12:16):
all the people in all of baseball, Joe's own brother
is the one coming the closest to his fifty six
game hitting streak, and it's up to thirty seven games,
so Dominic only has another nineteen games to go.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
He'll at least tie his brother.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
And they're actually the Yankees are playing the Red Sox
of all places, of all teams, and Dominic is zero
for three and he gets up again, it's going to
be his last. Unless it's an amazing comeback. It's going
to be his last at bat of the game, and
he sends a screamer to the left center field gap
and in a brilliant play, who chases it down but
Joe DiMaggio, robbing his brother of a base hit and
(12:52):
breaking his brother's fifty thirty.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Seven game hitting streak. They used to keep score too.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
I should mention this how many times one robbed a
hit from the other. And by the end of their careers,
Dominic actually by an easy margin, had out scored his
brother Joe, and who stole a hit from the other
one by the playing center field. So they loved each
other very much, and they did. It was a lifelong thing.
(13:20):
The biggest claim to fame for Joe after his career
as a baseball player was marrying Marilyn Monroe. That marriage
lasted only nine months. And there's I think information in
my book about the Joe Marilynd relationship that you won't
find other places. And a big reason for that is
because I had access to members of the Demaggio family
that quite a few of them did not participate. And
(13:43):
then Richard ben Kramer Joe Demagio biography, I think because
they got a sense from him that I was going
to be rather critical. My book is not pro Demajo
anti Demago. It's the story about the family, even to
the point where Dominic and Emily is they really liked
Marilyn Monroe.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
They thought she was a wonderful girl. They thought she
and Joe were wrong for each other, but they could.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
See that they were in love, and they were fully
supportive of Joe getting married to Marylynd if that's what
he wanted. Now we know that the marriage lasted only
nine months, I think in nineteen fifty four, and they
broke up and went their separate ways. But apparently they
still had a strong attraction to each other. Because what
most people don't know, and I learned this from Emily Demajo,
who again is the only one of that generations still alive.
(14:27):
She's in her nineties now, that Marilyn and Joe used
to have these secret rendezvous up at Dominic and Emily's
place up in the Boston area in Massachusetts in the
nineteen fifties, and every so often somebody would somebody from
the press would wonder was at a Demagho sighting, and
they would stake out the Dominic Emily house in the
(14:47):
Boston area. So sometimes they would have to. Dominic would
get into disguise as Joe, would get into Joe's car
and drive it around a little while. Meanwhile Emily would
and would get a cab for Joe and Marilyn to take.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Them to the train stations to take a head back
to New York.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
That went on until Marilyn met Arthur Miller, and then
all a hanky panky with Joe ended.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
As far as we know.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
So, Joe had already a failed marriage, and as his
life went on, he became more and more disenchanted with
his fame at sea, with life in general. He had
a very difficult relationship with his only child, Joe Demaggio Junior.
You can imagine what that was like for him, being
Joe Demaggio junior and always being compared to his father.
He tried and did not become a baseball player. He
(15:31):
did become join the Marine Corps, but he also drifted
a lot. He was more like his brother Vince. Couldn't
quite get traction on the rest of his life. And
when Joe died, it was in national headlines all over
the place, of course, because he was an icon.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Where have you gone, Joe Demago? He was in songs.
He was lionized in the press.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
He always got good press, even though in a lot
of ways he couldn't stand the press. But what about Dominic. Now,
in a case of Dominic DiMaggio, I believe it's fair
for me to say that I did not start this
book with the idea that he would become really more
the central character or coming out of the book as
(16:15):
my sort of hero. But what happened was, I think,
is I got to know Dominic from talking to his children,
and thankfully his widow was still alive.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
She was ninety.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Ish, but I was able to visit with her several times,
have many conversations with her. She was the keeper of
the Demagio family history. She was the only one of
the nine Demargio children and their spouses. She was the
only one of that generation still alive. She had married
Dominic in nineteen forty eight, so she was there while
Dominic was still at the prime of his career. Dominic
(16:48):
joined the Red Sox in nineteen forty He also missed
three seasons because he was in the navy, and after
World War Two he came back and he was just
getting into his prime. Like his brothers, Joe and Vincent,
who were starting to get past their prime after the war.
He was just getting into his prime as a ballplayer.
I mean, the Red Sox had great teams in the
(17:09):
mid to late forties. You know, you had Dominic Demacho,
who was considered a better center fielder than his brother.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
He was not a power here like his brother.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
He was usually bagging in the first or second spot,
followed by people like Johnny Pesky and Bobby Dorr, Verne Stevens,
Jimmy Fox. They were a lot of really good Red
Sox players alongside Dominic. Dominic right from the beginning after
his marriage, emphasized family.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
That was what was most important to me.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Loved baseball, but he always made sure that at the end,
after every game, he came home and came home to
his family. He and his wife had three children, a
Dominic and Peter were the boys, and Emily Junior was
the girl. And when Dominic when it was time for him,
when the writing was on the wall in his career
(18:00):
winding down, he walked away and he bought a manufacturing
company and became an extremely successful businessman. And to me,
that's an important part of the book too, is the
post baseball career of Dominic Demaggio because he knew he
was always going to be in the shadow of his
brother as a ballplayer, but he was not in the
shadow of his brother as a man or as a
family man, as a husband.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Or a father. He became quite wealthy, and he and
his wife were very.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Very involved in Charity's philanthropic work in the Boston area.
He remained a legendary figure in Boston, and he lived
until he was I believe ninety two, when Dominic died,
surrounded by family. And it's no coincidence that the very
last word of the book is family. That's what the book,
(18:47):
to me was about the Demaggios. It was, you know,
the subtitle is three brothers, their passion for Baseball, their
pursuit of the American Dream. I think it sums it
up the subtitle, because it was the families.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Pursuit of the American dream.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
It was the passion of those three brothers for baseball,
and it was their love and sometimes disturbing relationship with
each other. Joe being the superhero, Vincent being viewed in
a lot of ways as a failure, but Dominic not
the hall of favor though. I think you should have
gotten more consideration, but probably most successful as a human
(19:24):
being than the brothers, because he had this long enduring
marriage of well over sixty years with his.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Wife, the three children.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
His son takes over the manufacturing company, his daughter becomes
a writer and an accomplished person, as Peter's other son becomes
an accomplished person. And so I just found myself as
I was writing the book more and more gravitating towards
Dominic's story. And I think that if people want, even
not baseball fans, I think that they would enjoy the
(19:54):
book because it's really a story about the American dream,
and it's a story about family.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
And great job. As O to Greg Hangler for bringing
us this story. In a special thanks to Tom claven
and by the way, get his book, The DiMaggio's three brothers,
their passion for baseball and their pursuit of the American dream.
The Dmaggio brothers their story here on our American Stories
This is our American Stories, and we tell stories about
everything here on this show. One of our favorite subjects
is the subject of sports. More than three hundred and
fifty sets of brothers have played in the major leagues
since the eighteen seventies, and we're talking about baseball. But
few have had the skill, the charisma, or the success
(00:31):
of the DiMaggio brothers, Jolton, Joe, dom and Vince. Here
to tell the story is the four time New York
Times bestseller author Tom Clavin. He'll be sharing stories from
his book The DiMaggio's Three Brothers, their passion for baseball
and their pursuit of the American dream.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Here's Claven.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
The demad Jo's is about family. That's the reason why
I wrote the book. It's dedicated to my own family.
I had actually turned down the opportunity to write the
Demaggios twice. I was not interested. I thought that Richard
ben Kramer had done the book on the Demaggio's because
of his biography of Joe Demagio in A Hero's Life.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I'm not a big fan of that book.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
But I figured it would be pretty thorough and what
else could I do. The third time that my agent
suggested that I do a book on the Demaggio's all
three brothers. I agreed to look into it, mostly just
so I could get him off my back and he
could stop suggesting that. And I started to do some research.
(01:35):
I mean, like most people, I maybe didn't even know
there were two other Demaggio brothers, or I knew that
there was Dominic in Boston, but I didn't know about
Vince at all. And it is kind of remarkable that
you had three brothers playing at the same time, not
unheard of. I mean, we know about the Elu brothers,
for example, and we had other brothers who have played
(01:57):
at the same time.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
With the Demaggio's.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
My first stop was, after doing some initial researches, I
made an appointment with Dominic Demaggio Junior and went up
to see him. He had taken over his father's factory
manufacturing business in the Boston area, and I went up
to see him and spent the day with him talking
about his father. And I came away realizing that and
(02:22):
many writers would not want to say something like this,
my agent was right. There was a terrific story here
and it went way beyond Joe Demaggio, which I was
very glad for because even though I was born and
raised a Yankees fan, my father's favorite player was Joe Demaggio. Again,
a Joe Demaggio biography didn't interest me, so I wrote
(02:45):
a book that really is from the viewpoint of family.
Giuseppe and Rosalie coming over from Italy, barely could speak English,
becoming a fisherman in the San Francisco area, raising nine children.
The last of home where Vincent Demaggio, Joe Demaggio and
the baby Dominic Demaggio. And those are the three that
(03:06):
became baseball players. They weren't carbon copies of each other.
They all three loved baseball. It's interesting that the Giuseppe
and Rosalie had had six children and then they had Vincent,
and Vincent was passionate about baseball, and he was talented.
And father Giuseppe forbade his children to play baseball. And
(03:31):
so when Joe was a teenager, he couldn't play, or
he had to play in secret. When Dominic was very young,
he couldn't play, or the mother would sometimes cover for them.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
But Vincent was very blatant about it.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
He wanted to play baseball, That's what he wanted to
do with his life, and when Giuseppe kept being oppositate
about it, but Vincent did as he ran away. Some
kids run away and joined the circus. Vincent ran away
to join a baseball team, and he started playing in
leagues up and down the up and down California, up
and down the West Coast into Oregon and Washington. Eventually
made it to the Pacific Coast League, which was almost
(04:05):
a Major League caliber. One of the enjoyments for me
of writing the book that demad Jo's was that all
three brothers played first the Pacific Coast League before going
onto the major leagues.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Vincent went off to play baseball, and he was gone
for about two years, and he came back to the
family home in the San Francisco area, and his father
basically had his arms crossed and said, so you come back.
You probably have no money and you've been a big failure,
and now you're ready to be a fisherman, just like
your father, just like your brothers, well two of the
(04:38):
brothers anyway, And instead Vincent reached into his pocket and
put something like six thousand dollars cash on the table.
That's why I earned playing baseball, and set he took
a look at that, and he went to Joe and
he said, what are you going to start playing baseball? Well,
Joe is ready, willing and able to jump right in.
And he also started playing for local teams and for
(04:59):
the Pacific Coast League, and he quickly out distance Vincent.
Now we should really give credit to Vincent here because
he had the courage to follow his dream. And it
was because of that the door got cracked open for
Joe Demagio. If it had not been for Vincent, we
would never might never know Joe Dematio a Hall of
Fame player, winner of nine World Series titles. So Joe
(05:22):
started to play in the Pacific Coast League and it
was in the Pacific Coast League that he had a
sixty one game hitting streak. I mean, we know about
the longer, the long hitting streak he had Major League Baseball,
but he had his longest one of his careers in
the Pacific Coast League. Meanwhile, Vincent does get called up
to the major leagues. I believe his first team he
(05:43):
played for was the Pittsburgh Pirates. He eventually played for
the Philadelphia Phillies, but it was with the Pirates that
he had a couple.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Of All Star seasons.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
He was a very good defensive outfielder, probably during his
years in the National League, the best center fielder in
the National League. And he was pretty decent hitter, and
he made the All Star team in a couple of years.
Joe came up with the Yankees in nineteen thirty six.
It was his rookie season, and he and DiMaggio were
on great Yankee teams that won the Pennant in thirty six,
(06:13):
thirty seven, thirty eight, thirty nine. You know, four straight Pennants,
four straight World Series. As it turned out too, so
Joe right away got used to winning, and he was
an All Star every year. And then what about Dominic Demagio,
the youngest one. He was call also nicknamed the Professor.
He had these thick glasses. Nobody thought of him as
a baseball player. He had to really go against a
(06:35):
lot of stereotypes to eventually work his way through the
Pacific Coast.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
League and then into.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Major League Baseball, where he was signed by the The
Yankees had a chance to sign him when they passed.
I didn't think he was, you know, anything like his brother,
and he was not Joe Demago, but he was Dominic Demago,
and he was a darn good ball player, and I
happened to think.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Should have been given more consideration for the Hall of.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Fame, But he was taken by the Boston Red Sox.
And he had had a nine All Star seasons. He
played thirteen seasons played from about nineteen forty to fifty
three fifty two, I think, and he made the All
Star Team nine seven times.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Excuse me.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Joe had made the All Star Team thirteen times and
Vincent twice, So he had the three brothers. Between the
three of them made twenty two All Star teams. That's
a remarkable level of achievement for any family, and their
careers took different paths. Now in Vincent's case, by the
time World War Two ended, he was done with baseball.
(07:36):
He still played, He just kept playing in less accomplished
than smaller leagues and eventually ended up back on the
West Coast. And he had a troubled post baseball career alcoholism,
having a hard time holding a job. So he's also
kind of like a story of the American dream that
the Demaggio family was. That his dream was to play baseball,
(08:00):
accomplished it. It was outside of baseball that he had trouble,
you know, dealing with life. Joe, as we know, was
a great leader of the Yankees. He did miss three
seasons because of World War Two. I discussed in the
books some of the controversy about that because he yet
to be sort of dragged, kicking and screaming into the
military service.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
But he is a guy who was about to make one.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Hundred thousand dollars and studies making two hundred and forty
dollars a month being in the army when he got out.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Of the service.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
When World War Two ended, the Yankees again won the
pennant in forty seven forty nine, fifty to fifty one.
Joe would diminishing skills and then he retired after the
fifty one season. But by this time Mickey Mannal was
on the Yankees and a new era began for the Yankees.
Joe had a pretty famous post baseball career. He was
(08:53):
always introduced as the greatest living ballplayer, much to the
detriment and lot of amusement of Ted Williams. When you
look at their respective statistics, Ted Williams far out distanced
Joe DiMaggio.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
He just didn't have nine World.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Series titles, and you're listening to Tom Claven and he's
sharing stories from his book The DiMaggio's Three Brothers, their
passion for baseball and their pursuit of the American Dream.
When we come back, more of the story of the
DiMaggio brothers here on our American Stories. And we continue
(09:41):
with the story of the DiMaggio brothers here on our
American Stories. Let's return to Tom Claven.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Joe and Dominic were very close brothers. They really loved
each other. They were also very fierce competitors, and it
didn't help that they were both considered the best set
of avails in the American League. In the case of
how they loved each other, I think one example is
the nineteen forty one season. It also shows that Ted
Williams cared so much for Dominic and for Joe too,
(10:09):
even though they were very much rivals. But in nineteen
forty one season, Joe was doing his fifty six game
hitting streak and out in the outfield when they were
at Fenway Park, he had Ted Williams and left and
Dominic in center. And usually in those days, games were
played in the daytime and it was hard for finding
out what was going on in the game that was
(10:31):
being played at the exact same time. So Ted basically
bribed the scorekeeper who was behind the green wall and
Fenway Park to listen to the radio or some kind
of way to get information from the New York game.
And whenever Joe got a hit, he would yell it
out to Ted, who in turn would yell it over
(10:52):
to Dominic in center field. And Dominic paid attention very
fiercely to every moment that he could get his hands
on the Joe Demago hitting streak. I think one way
that they were competitors is that one illustration of this,
in nineteen forty eight, the Yankees, the Indians, and the
Red Sox are all competing for the American League Pennant Yankee.
(11:13):
The Red Sox had won it in forty six, the
Yankees had won it in forty seven, and now you
had these upstart Indie Cleveland Indians. And as it happened,
Dominic had been dating a woman named Emily, and they
had made plans to marry, and they planned to get
married in October nineteen forty eight, and Joe Demago calls
(11:34):
his mother, and his mother is expressing some concern that
what happens if the Red Sox win the pennant and
Dominic won't be able to get married when he's supposed to,
and Joe says, don't worry, mom, I'll personally take care
of it, make sure Dominic's available for his wedding, And
sure enough, on the last weekend of the season, Joe
demolishes the Red Sox and the Cleveland Indians win the
(11:55):
pennant and the Dominic is sent home in time to
get married, with of course Joe as his best man.
I think another good example of their competitiveness is that
in nineteen forty nine, Dominic had a hitting streak of
his own going on. I mean, he ended up. Of
(12:16):
all the people in all of baseball, Joe's own brother
is the one coming the closest to his fifty six
game hitting streak, and it's up to thirty seven games,
so Dominic only has another nineteen games to go.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
He'll at least tie his brother.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
And they're actually the Yankees are playing the Red Sox
of all places, of all teams, and Dominic is zero
for three and he gets up again, it's going to
be his last. Unless it's an amazing comeback. It's going
to be his last at bat of the game, and
he sends a screamer to the left center field gap
and in a brilliant play, who chases it down but
Joe DiMaggio, robbing his brother of a base hit and
(12:52):
breaking his brother's fifty thirty.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Seven game hitting streak. They used to keep score too.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
I should mention this how many times one robbed a
hit from the other. And by the end of their careers,
Dominic actually by an easy margin, had out scored his
brother Joe, and who stole a hit from the other
one by the playing center field. So they loved each
other very much, and they did. It was a lifelong thing.
(13:20):
The biggest claim to fame for Joe after his career
as a baseball player was marrying Marilyn Monroe. That marriage
lasted only nine months. And there's I think information in
my book about the Joe Marilynd relationship that you won't
find other places. And a big reason for that is
because I had access to members of the Demaggio family
that quite a few of them did not participate. And
(13:43):
then Richard ben Kramer Joe Demagio biography, I think because
they got a sense from him that I was going
to be rather critical. My book is not pro Demajo
anti Demago. It's the story about the family, even to
the point where Dominic and Emily is they really liked
Marilyn Monroe.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
They thought she was a wonderful girl. They thought she
and Joe were wrong for each other, but they could.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
See that they were in love, and they were fully
supportive of Joe getting married to Marylynd if that's what
he wanted. Now we know that the marriage lasted only
nine months, I think in nineteen fifty four, and they
broke up and went their separate ways. But apparently they
still had a strong attraction to each other. Because what
most people don't know, and I learned this from Emily Demajo,
who again is the only one of that generations still alive.
(14:27):
She's in her nineties now, that Marilyn and Joe used
to have these secret rendezvous up at Dominic and Emily's
place up in the Boston area in Massachusetts in the
nineteen fifties, and every so often somebody would somebody from
the press would wonder was at a Demagho sighting, and
they would stake out the Dominic Emily house in the
(14:47):
Boston area. So sometimes they would have to. Dominic would
get into disguise as Joe, would get into Joe's car
and drive it around a little while. Meanwhile Emily would
and would get a cab for Joe and Marilyn to take.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Them to the train stations to take a head back
to New York.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
That went on until Marilyn met Arthur Miller, and then
all a hanky panky with Joe ended.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
As far as we know.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
So, Joe had already a failed marriage, and as his
life went on, he became more and more disenchanted with
his fame at sea, with life in general. He had
a very difficult relationship with his only child, Joe Demaggio Junior.
You can imagine what that was like for him, being
Joe Demaggio junior and always being compared to his father.
He tried and did not become a baseball player. He
(15:31):
did become join the Marine Corps, but he also drifted
a lot. He was more like his brother Vince. Couldn't
quite get traction on the rest of his life. And
when Joe died, it was in national headlines all over
the place, of course, because he was an icon.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Where have you gone, Joe Demago? He was in songs.
He was lionized in the press.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
He always got good press, even though in a lot
of ways he couldn't stand the press. But what about Dominic. Now,
in a case of Dominic DiMaggio, I believe it's fair
for me to say that I did not start this
book with the idea that he would become really more
the central character or coming out of the book as
(16:15):
my sort of hero. But what happened was, I think,
is I got to know Dominic from talking to his children,
and thankfully his widow was still alive.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
She was ninety.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Ish, but I was able to visit with her several times,
have many conversations with her. She was the keeper of
the Demagio family history. She was the only one of
the nine Demargio children and their spouses. She was the
only one of that generation still alive. She had married
Dominic in nineteen forty eight, so she was there while
Dominic was still at the prime of his career. Dominic
(16:48):
joined the Red Sox in nineteen forty He also missed
three seasons because he was in the navy, and after
World War Two he came back and he was just
getting into his prime. Like his brothers, Joe and Vincent,
who were starting to get past their prime after the war.
He was just getting into his prime as a ballplayer.
I mean, the Red Sox had great teams in the
(17:09):
mid to late forties. You know, you had Dominic Demacho,
who was considered a better center fielder than his brother.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
He was not a power here like his brother.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
He was usually bagging in the first or second spot,
followed by people like Johnny Pesky and Bobby Dorr, Verne Stevens,
Jimmy Fox. They were a lot of really good Red
Sox players alongside Dominic. Dominic right from the beginning after
his marriage, emphasized family.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
That was what was most important to me.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Loved baseball, but he always made sure that at the end,
after every game, he came home and came home to
his family. He and his wife had three children, a
Dominic and Peter were the boys, and Emily Junior was
the girl. And when Dominic when it was time for him,
when the writing was on the wall in his career
(18:00):
winding down, he walked away and he bought a manufacturing
company and became an extremely successful businessman. And to me,
that's an important part of the book too, is the
post baseball career of Dominic Demaggio because he knew he
was always going to be in the shadow of his
brother as a ballplayer, but he was not in the
shadow of his brother as a man or as a
family man, as a husband.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Or a father. He became quite wealthy, and he and
his wife were very.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Very involved in Charity's philanthropic work in the Boston area.
He remained a legendary figure in Boston, and he lived
until he was I believe ninety two, when Dominic died,
surrounded by family. And it's no coincidence that the very
last word of the book is family. That's what the book,
(18:47):
to me was about the Demaggios. It was, you know,
the subtitle is three brothers, their passion for Baseball, their
pursuit of the American Dream. I think it sums it
up the subtitle, because it was the families.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Pursuit of the American dream.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
It was the passion of those three brothers for baseball,
and it was their love and sometimes disturbing relationship with
each other. Joe being the superhero, Vincent being viewed in
a lot of ways as a failure, but Dominic not
the hall of favor though. I think you should have
gotten more consideration, but probably most successful as a human
(19:24):
being than the brothers, because he had this long enduring
marriage of well over sixty years with his.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Wife, the three children.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
His son takes over the manufacturing company, his daughter becomes
a writer and an accomplished person, as Peter's other son becomes
an accomplished person. And so I just found myself as
I was writing the book more and more gravitating towards
Dominic's story. And I think that if people want, even
not baseball fans, I think that they would enjoy the
(19:54):
book because it's really a story about the American dream,
and it's a story about family.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
And great job. As O to Greg Hangler for bringing
us this story. In a special thanks to Tom claven
and by the way, get his book, The DiMaggio's three brothers,
their passion for baseball and their pursuit of the American dream.
The Dmaggio brothers their story here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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