DiMaggio would hole up inside the New York Yankees clubhouse long after the rest of the players had gone home, then try to slip past the stragglers who waited outside the clubhouse door.
Still, it always bothered him that his shyness would be mistaken for his rudeness.
In later years, DiMaggio seemed to accept, even relish, his role as "The Greatest Living Ballplayer." But, once again, it was his desire for privacy that limited his appearances, and made him one of the least publicized famous people of the 20th century.
RIGHT UP UNTIL DEATH, DIMAGGIO was bigger than life. His mystique endured, as did his baseball legacy, and just as the songwriter Paul Simon suggested in verse more than 25 years ago, we miss Joe DiMaggio again ... one last time.
Word comes today of DiMaggio's death at age 84 in his home in Hollywood, Fla., where his recent fight for life was nearly as well-chronicled as his 56-game hitting streak more than five decades earlier.
To be honest, DiMaggio's death leaves us feeling both privileged and cheated -- privileged to have been able to witness his grace as well as his greatness, and cheated that we didn't get to see it nearly often enough.
Then again, Joe D intended it that way.
He was painfully shy, persistently private, almost reclusive by nature.
HE WAS MARRIED TO Marilyn Monroe. And never spoke of it. And you never asked him about it, either. It was just understood: Don't go there.
DiMaggio and Monroe were married Jan. 14, 1954. They became known as Mr. and Mrs. America. The Slugger and The Sexpot. The marriage lasted less than 10 months. They were divorced Oct. 27, 1954.
Monroe died Aug. 4, 1962. She allegedly locked herself in her bedroom, alone, naked, and swallowed as many as 50 sleeping pills. She was found the next morning, clutching a phone in one hand.
DiMaggio sank deeper into his private world.
HIS PUBLIC APPEARANCES OVER THE YEARS became few and far between, which only fed our curiosity of the myth as well as the man. No, he didn't have to make guest appearances on Leno or Letterman to have us remember him.
Hospitalized between Oct. 12 and Jan. 19, DiMaggio received as many as 200-300 letters per day from well-wishers across America.
Unless you're 60 years old or older, you probably have needed to rely on more second-hand information in order to "know" the Yankee Clipper than in knowing any other sports legend of our time.
We, as a society, live in a world without walls. This is the media-saturation age. Few of our heroes -- what few there are left -- leave anything to our imagination.
Surely Michael Jordan, even Muhammad Ali, are more visible than Joe D ever was. We were even able to follow John Glenn to outer space and back.
THE GREAT DIMAGGIO, as he is known in the pages of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea remained a paradox to his dying day. He was virtually invisible ... and still bigger than life.
Even Ted Williams, DiMaggio's foil from their playing days, has on several occasions allowed us to walk around in his shoes and climb inside his head. Herein lies another irony: DiMaggio, the player, owned the media; Williams, the player, sparred with it.
DiMaggio once said, "I get around. I do a lot of things. I am not the hermit a lot of people try to make me out to be."
DiMaggio lived alone. His waterfront home located in an exclusive section of Hollywood, Fla., resembled a museum, with all its Yankee memorabilia, but actually it was more a comfortable retreat for a very private man.
To his dying day, DiMaggio remained more a glimpse than a public figure.
HE WAS A DOER, NOT a glad-hander. Each February, he held the Joe DiMaggio Legends baseball charity game, which included a dinner and a silent auction, in Fort Lauderdale to raise money for his Children's Hospital in Hollywood, Fla.
His appearance would be brief. He would speak less than 10 minutes and thank everyone for coming. This would come after DiMaggio -- always at his own request -- be introduced to the fans as "The Greatest Living Ballplayer."
The late Lefty Gomez, a former Yankee pitcher and longtime friend of DiMaggio, once said, "Joe hasn't changed much over the years. He's still a man of mystery."
Gomez used to tell the story of playing golf one time with DiMaggio at a pro-am in Las Vegas and making plans to meet for a drink afterward. The round ended and everyone headed for the clubhouse.
Typically, DiMaggio was nowhere to be found. After about an hour, Gomez asked the bartender if he had seen DiMaggio.
"No," replied the bartender, "but I've seen Howard Hughes four times."
We will miss you, Joe D ... one last time.
