In a way, because he survived that crisis, Joe DiMaggio was able, in effect, to read his own obituary. If there was any doubt in his mind, he learned how much he mattered. And now that he has died, we can ask the question: Why does this man merit so much of our regard? Why do we care so?
Oh, no doubt, he was a superb ballplayer, one of the best. But just in his own era, most experts rank Ted Williams before him; some Stan Musial, too. Willie Mays invariably surpasses DiMaggio as the best centerfielder ever. No, as great a talent as he was, DiMaggio was more cultural a figure than he was merely athletic.
He represented very well, I think, a place and a moment -- the fabled New York City of the middle of this century. The only time we ever had an Oz in America. We can still see young Mr. DiMaggio in one of his rich, sleek suits, with a cigarette and a martini at a supper club, just as well as we remember him in his pinstripes, elegantly patrolling -- patrolling, that wonderful outfield word -- the great green expanse of Yankee Stadium.
Indeed, as bizarre a pair as they make, the only two men of our times whom I picture as always wearing a suit -- always -- are Joe DiMaggio and Richard Nixon. The Yankee Clipper wore his somewhat better.
The Yankee Clipper. Not a nickname. Oh, God, no. More a title. DiMaggio was the Yankees in those last years when the Bronx Bombers absolutely ruled baseball, and when baseball was still, indisputably, the National Pastime. So, not only will DiMaggio always evoke the New York of a certain time, postwar, when there were no chain stores, no malls, no suburbs, no rock 'n' roll ... he also will always best represent those last years when baseball ruled supreme.
Ironically, while Paul Simon used DiMaggio's name as an afterthought, simply because it scanned so much better for his song lyric than did "Mickey Mantle," Simon stumbled onto the truth. DiMaggio was the symbol of an era; Mantle wasn't. Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio asks, Where has the past gone? Where have we gone?
But, curiously, long before his death DiMaggio had been forgotten for what matters most in his legend -- that he was a significant ethnic figure. Not quite as Jackie Robinson was, nor as Roberto Clemente, but as the first great American star of Italian heritage. Twenty-five thousand Italian-Americans came out to Yankee Stadium that day in 1936 when DiMaggio made his debut.
Maybe because DiMaggio was a high-school dropout, originally called, simply "Dago," by his teammates, maybe for that he was always insecure in the larger world -- so retiring and distant, mysterious even. And maybe because Italians in America are no longer systematically discriminated against, as then they were, it's easy to forget what DiMaggio endured and how he mattered most under pressure. But long ago we stopped asking: Where have you come from, Joe DiMaggio? And that's good.
Finally, too, I think it counted less that he married Marilyn Monroe than that their marriage didn't last. The most beautiful movie star in the world and the most graceful athlete -- the perfect physical union for our age, the best since Venus and Adonis -- but even they couldn't make it work.
We, as imperfect human beings, took some naturally mean-spirited comfort that gods and goddesses can fail, too. It is that tragedy of the hero that yet enthralls us now, on the day of DiMaggio's death, as much as the glamour ever did.
