Read Online 56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports by Kostya Kennedy - Free Book Online
Authors: Kostya Kennedy
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grown man to sleep in. The view from Joe and Dorothy’s master suite looked south, and on clear days, they told Dominic, you could see for miles, out past the foot of Manhattan and to the Statue of Liberty. The windows in their bathroom, indeed in all three of the apartment bathrooms, were fitted with stained glass so that someone out on the terrace could not see in. At the far end of the apartment, behind the kitchen and through a few small hallways, Joe had his study. This, said Dorothy, chuckling when they finally got there, was Joe’s sanctuary; there were a few newspapers arranged on the writing desk, which had before it a sturdy, high-backed chair.
They all agreed that this was not a night for eating outside, too wet and too windy, but Joe and Dorothy took Dom out onto the brick terrace that wrapped around three sides of the place, and they walked the full length of it. From the north end, the widest area of the terrace where the tables and chairs were arranged, you could see in three directions: across the Hudson River to New Jersey, over the treetops in Central Park and, most impressively at night, straight ahead to the bright lights festooned upon the George Washington Bridge, now twinkling and blurred in the moist sky. They were a long, long way from Taylor Street, from the crowded flat where Joe and Dominic were raised.
Seeing Joe away from the ballpark like this reminded Dom of home, and of the early years, of stepping out of that first-floor apartment to a world of games and youth. He and Joe, the two youngest of the nine children, would listen in the predawn darkness as their father, Giuseppe, pulled on his old boots and crept outside to walk the half mile downhill to the wharf where he would clamber into his boat, the Rosalie D (named for Ma) for another day on the water in San Francisco Bay, bait-fishing with Tom or more likely Mike or sometimes both of his older boys along to help him out.
Giuseppe imagined that one day they’d have a fleet of DiMaggio boats, more fish, more money and the old family tradition living proudly on for another generation. But later, when the youngest boys Joe and Dominic were old enough to help fish or clean the boat, they rarely did. Joe especially. He would mend the nets that had torn along the reef. He was good at that, his long fingers working swiftly and nimbly, a cigarette hanging from his mouth. But he did the mending on the dock. As for fishing, Joe said he couldn’t take the smell, and that riding in Pa’s little boat made him seasick.
As boys they ate what they could find in the house for breakfast, on lucky days the butt end—the culo as Tom called it, laughing—of a loaf of Italian bread, brushed with a little olive oil. When the bread was stale, as it often was because it came cheaper that way, Ma put it in the oven and made it good as new.
After the day at the Hancock School, which took up the corner at Taylor and Filbert, practically right next door to home, Dom and Joe and maybe their neighbor Dante or one of the other kids from the block would devise a game using a ball and a branch, or perhaps the DiMaggios’ well-worn family bat, to play on Valparaiso Street, a flat, narrow alley off of Taylor’s precipitous drop. That was safer; miss a ball on Taylor and it might roll down five blocks or more. Joe was in the fourth grade. Dom was in the second. When enough boys were around they’d sometimes head down to the dusty horse lot by the wharf, play baseball with a beat-up ball. There were never enough gloves to go around and piles of manure dotted their makeshift field.
The real games, especially in the years when Joe had begun at Francisco Junior High, took place a dogleg away from home, a block-and-a-half scamper on the coarsely paved streets to North Beach playground. Here’s where people began to take more serious notice of the way Joe played ball. Vince, two years older, was good too, very good, but no one hit the ball farther than Joe, and no one
They all agreed that this was not a night for eating outside, too wet and too windy, but Joe and Dorothy took Dom out onto the brick terrace that wrapped around three sides of the place, and they walked the full length of it. From the north end, the widest area of the terrace where the tables and chairs were arranged, you could see in three directions: across the Hudson River to New Jersey, over the treetops in Central Park and, most impressively at night, straight ahead to the bright lights festooned upon the George Washington Bridge, now twinkling and blurred in the moist sky. They were a long, long way from Taylor Street, from the crowded flat where Joe and Dominic were raised.
Seeing Joe away from the ballpark like this reminded Dom of home, and of the early years, of stepping out of that first-floor apartment to a world of games and youth. He and Joe, the two youngest of the nine children, would listen in the predawn darkness as their father, Giuseppe, pulled on his old boots and crept outside to walk the half mile downhill to the wharf where he would clamber into his boat, the Rosalie D (named for Ma) for another day on the water in San Francisco Bay, bait-fishing with Tom or more likely Mike or sometimes both of his older boys along to help him out.
Giuseppe imagined that one day they’d have a fleet of DiMaggio boats, more fish, more money and the old family tradition living proudly on for another generation. But later, when the youngest boys Joe and Dominic were old enough to help fish or clean the boat, they rarely did. Joe especially. He would mend the nets that had torn along the reef. He was good at that, his long fingers working swiftly and nimbly, a cigarette hanging from his mouth. But he did the mending on the dock. As for fishing, Joe said he couldn’t take the smell, and that riding in Pa’s little boat made him seasick.
As boys they ate what they could find in the house for breakfast, on lucky days the butt end—the culo as Tom called it, laughing—of a loaf of Italian bread, brushed with a little olive oil. When the bread was stale, as it often was because it came cheaper that way, Ma put it in the oven and made it good as new.
After the day at the Hancock School, which took up the corner at Taylor and Filbert, practically right next door to home, Dom and Joe and maybe their neighbor Dante or one of the other kids from the block would devise a game using a ball and a branch, or perhaps the DiMaggios’ well-worn family bat, to play on Valparaiso Street, a flat, narrow alley off of Taylor’s precipitous drop. That was safer; miss a ball on Taylor and it might roll down five blocks or more. Joe was in the fourth grade. Dom was in the second. When enough boys were around they’d sometimes head down to the dusty horse lot by the wharf, play baseball with a beat-up ball. There were never enough gloves to go around and piles of manure dotted their makeshift field.
The real games, especially in the years when Joe had begun at Francisco Junior High, took place a dogleg away from home, a block-and-a-half scamper on the coarsely paved streets to North Beach playground. Here’s where people began to take more serious notice of the way Joe played ball. Vince, two years older, was good too, very good, but no one hit the ball farther than Joe, and no one
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