Joe and Marilyn: Legends in Love (56 page)

The next day Joe DiMaggio left New York City, never to return.

•  •  •

Upon his arrival in Florida, Joe visited his pulmonary specialist Dr. Aaron Neuhaus, and he soon learned that an X-ray had detected an odious white spot on his lung, a spot that was eventually identified as tuberculosis and then complicated by the additional diagnosis of pneumonia. Joe was admitted to the hospital. When none of the treatments gave DiMaggio any relief, and his condition continued to deteriorate, Neuhaus ran more tests and found advanced-stage lung cancer. A protracted fight with the various complications of the illness ensued, and the Clipper was not released from his confinement for ninety-nine days.

At first, when Joe entered the hospital for the surgery to remove and assess the cancer, he instructed Morris Engelberg, who kept an unceasing vigil through the several stages of DiMaggio’s illness, to censor all reports about his condition. He was adamant that his granddaughters be protected from concern, that his friends and family have no reason for pity, that his baseball colleagues lose no respect, that the Yankees be undeterred from their race for the pennant and the World Championship. He had checked into the hospital under a pseudonym so that the press would be kept away from the hospital as well as from him and his close circle. When it became impossible to keep the truth from Paula and Kathie, the young women flew to his side and did not leave. When Dom, his only remaining sibling, learned through the grapevine that DiMaggio was ill, he came, and since Joltin’ Joe was far too ill to object, the rift between the brothers was tentatively called off.

DiMaggio defied all the odds. When the surgeon Dr. Luis Ansanza
emerged from the operation, Engelberg reported, it was clear that the Clipper was done for. He explained that a tumor had been removed, but that the cancer had spread to locations in the lungs that were inoperable. Joe DiMaggio’s death seemed imminent.

But Joltin’ Joe was not ready to leave. He survived several crises—his lungs collapsed, he contracted serious infections and hospital-borne illnesses, his heart failed, and he became disoriented—but he fought on. Word leaked to the press, and a barrage of nosy reporters soon pressed in on the staff and other patients as well as on Joe and his small entourage. A security guard had to be hired, and a psychiatrist was engaged along with round-the-clock protection by hospital staff and others. But he rallied.

George Steinbrenner came to visit Joe in the hospital. Nervous about seeing Joe fragile and weakened by illness, Steinbrenner fretted about what he would say, how he would react to the Clipper, but he needn’t have worried. When Steinbrenner arrived, DiMaggio was sitting up in bed, his trachea tube removed for the occasion, holding a baseball. They discussed the Yankees owner’s plans to trade players. Steinbrenner wanted to acquire veteran pitching star Roger Clemens, saying, “He’s the Michael Jordan of baseball!” The Clipper lobbied for keeping left-hander David Wells. “David Wells is a big Yankees fan,” DiMaggio argued. “He knows about Babe Ruth. He even has a gut like Babe.” Engelberg, who was with the two in the hospital room, reported that the meeting was “a tonic for DiMaggio’s morale. He talked about it for days.”

In January, in defiance of all the predictions to the contrary, DiMaggio left the hospital and went home to his house on Waterside Lane, in Harbor Islands, Florida. Though DiMaggio’s doctors expected him to expire quickly once he left the hospital, Engelberg had equipped the house to make it as much like an intensive care unit as possible without extinguishing the comforts of home. Joe loved the view from his windows of the Intercoastal Waterway, and he had pushed Engelberg to get the doctors to release him so that he might return there. Whether
he knew he was dying was a matter of concern to all who knew him, but no one knew for sure. Engelberg was afraid that the knowledge that he had reached the end would plunge his friend into a depression that would speed the inevitable, and he was determined to keep Joe around as long as he could. He also knew that DiMaggio’s fragile mental state must be protected by keeping the old man stimulated with activities, responsibilities, and commitments.

Once home, Joe insisted on being well groomed and hidden from view. Engelberg planted ficus trees to create a wall around the house, shielding its occupant from peering eyes of neighbors and strangers alike. Engelberg hired DeJan Pesut to be DiMaggio’s security guard, cook, shopper, maintenance supervisor, and companion, and Pesut was able to move him gently about while his nurses kept him dressed, manicured, trimmed, and clean shaven. Though DiMaggio was not inclined to eat very much, Pesut insisted on using his Croatian skills to cook authentic Mediterranean food Italian style. The staff kept a library of Western movies and boxing bouts so that whenever there was nothing he wanted to watch on television, he could choose from any of dozens of alternate options.

News of DiMaggio’s confinement reached his multitudinous admirers, and cards and letters began to flow daily into his home in amazing numbers, from statesmen, politicians, celebrity actors, athletes, and especially from his fans. The letters kept the Clipper busy and comforted, as did the constant presence of Engelberg, the granddaughters, and the handful of others he was willing to see. But his strength continued to fail, and even the task of signing baseballs, which was once effortless for him, became overwhelmingly exhausting. At one point, Joe said to his friend, “Morris, soon Marilyn and I will be together again. Up there.”

•  •  •

On March 2, 1999, George Steinbrenner visited the Clipper and spent the afternoon reminiscing and arguing again about some of Steinbrenner’s managerial choices and discussing the upcoming Yankees season.
Steinbrenner told DiMaggio he expected Joltin’ Joe to throw out the first ball when the season opened the following month, but Joe didn’t commit himself. When Steinbrenner left, it was clear that the visit had been a great elixir for the retired Yankee, and Engelberg encouraged Joe to allow him to invite other friends to visit. Some of those summoned were able to get to DiMaggio in time. Other of Joe’s friends were emotionally unable to face his death, and still others were disinterested; some, like Barry Halper, were refused entry by DiMaggio himself. Morris Engelberg and granddaughters Paula and Kathie did not stray from Joe’s side for more than a few minutes at a time, and while Dom and his brother were not speaking to each other again, Dom and his wife, Emily, were steadfast and resolute in their determination to be near Joe. In the middle of the first week of March, Engelberg consulted with Joe’s family, and they decided it was time to call hospice in.

Javier Ribe, a registered nurse with the nearest hospice, was assigned the job of easing Joe DiMaggio into death. Ribe visited every day to assess the Clipper’s condition, and he instructed the family that no matter what time of the day or night death seemed imminent, they were to call him. He wanted to be the one to be there to call the funeral director and make the final arrangements. On the third day, Dom and his grandnieces called in a priest so that Joe might receive last rites. No call was made to Joe DiMaggio Jr.

On Saturday, March 6, the family and Engelberg realized that the end was surely near, when DiMaggio could not be roused even to watch the fight televised on HBO. By Sunday morning, DiMaggio was in a deep coma, barely hovering between life and death. That day was Engelberg’s birthday, and the friend hoped desperately that the old man would live until the day had passed. Dom, never one to be ultrasensitive to his brother, sat by Joe’s bed and spoke openly about funeral arrangements, which enraged Engelberg, who asked Dom to leave. The younger brother didn’t argue with Engelberg but gathered his belongings and left for a prearranged meeting with a business associate.

By this time, Joe’s oldest friend, Joe Nacchio, had returned from
a trip to Panama and had joined the vigil at DiMaggio’s bedside. Engelberg, knowing how important the World Series rings had been to DiMaggio, forced the ’36 Series ring, which Joe had asked him to protect, onto the Clipper’s swollen finger. Engelberg, Javier Ribe, Kathie, Paula and her husband, Jim Hamra, held Joe’s hands and feet, weeping openly, knowing they could not hold him back from death but hoping to ease his journey to the other side.

Moments after midnight on March 8, Joe rallied. His trachea tube had been removed, and he cleared his throat feebly. In a voice that none of the assembled family and friends recognized, Joe said, “I’ll finally get to see Marilyn again.” Seconds later, he was gone, but everyone there had heard his last words with absolute clarity.

Joseph Paul DiMaggio, the Yankee Clipper died in the first hour of Monday, March 8, 1999.

After the funeral home van had carried off Joltin’ Joe’s body to be prepared for burial, his trusted friend and attorney sat at his desk and penned a press release to be disseminated among the news media. Then, after months of rarely leaving his best friend’s side, the fifty-nine-year-old lawyer broke down emotionally, contemplating the weeks that had just passed. “I was consoled that Joe died peacefully,” Engelberg reflected. “He went the way he lived his life and played baseball: with dignity and with class,
la bella figura
to the last. He had a clean shave, his hair was combed, and his nails were manicured. The French doors facing the Intercoastal were open, and a cool breeze was blowing in.”

•  •  •

Major League Baseball chartered a plane to carry Joe DiMaggio’s body, accompanied by Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, Dom and Emily DiMaggio, and American League President Gene Budig, back to San Francisco. The funeral was held in the same church where Joe and Dorothy had been married, and where many DiMaggio family events had been consecrated. Yet even before the plane touched down, the controversy surrounding the funeral service had begun.

Kathie and Paula were adamant that DiMaggio’s wishes be honored and that, with the exception of Joe Nacchio and Morris Engelberg, only family be allowed to attend. As Evelyn Nieves wrote in the
New York Times
, “Even though he was one of the most famous men of this century, DiMaggio’s funeral this morning at SS. Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church . . . was astonishingly small, devoid of the celebrities of his vanishing era.”

Though George Steinbrenner and baseball luminaries such as Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto, and Reggie Jackson wanted to be there, none was invited. “They said they wanted it to be family,” reported Rev. Armand Oliveri, who presided over the service; “and that was about it.”

As the preparations were nearing completion, Joe Nacchio insisted that Joey Jr. be contacted, saying it would serve as a “fitting tribute and a mark of respect for his father.” Junior had called at least a couple times during Joe’s illness to find out how the old man was, but he had made no attempt to get to the dying Clipper. “Just give my regards to my father and tell him that I love him,” he told Engelberg. But as the funeral approached, no one was sure what Joe Jr. might or might not know, as no one knew where he was or what his situation might be. Dom DiMaggio wanted to hire professional pallbearers, but Nacchio and Engelberg disagreed, and Engelberg, who was Joe’s legal representative, decreed that pallbearers would include Joe’s brother Vince’s grandsons, Joe Nacchio, Morris Engelberg, and, if they could locate him, Joe DiMaggio Jr. Dom DiMaggio disagreed about finding Joe Jr. “You’re wasting your time,” he said. “He’s nothing more than a bum, and he won’t come.”

But Joseph DiMaggio Jr. did come to his father’s funeral, and he was a pallbearer. After driving for hours about Northern California, Engelberg and Nacchio located Joe Jr. under a car, doing maintenance work, somewhere outside of Pittsburg, California, looking every bit as he had once described himself: “diametrically opposed” to his father. Nacchio told him Joe would have wanted his son to be at his funeral. “He loved you, you know,” Nacchio told Joey. “I loved my father too,” he replied. “I’ll be there.”

Nacchio gave Junior $400 to “get cleaned up and buy appropriate clothing” for the funeral, and the family warned that Nacchio had probably been conned. “He’s a manipulator,” vowed Cousin Joe. But Nacchio had absolute faith that the son would be there to accompany the father’s casket into the church and to his final resting place, and Joseph DiMaggio Jr. did not disappoint.

Joey arrived at the funeral in a white limo and emerged wearing a new, well-pressed, and tailored three-button suit and shiny shoes. His hair,
though still in a ponytail, was clean and carefully controlled, and his hands were scrubbed to pristine softness with manicured and polished nails. He entered the arena of his long-neglected family with warmth and exuberance, and he greeted them all as though he had never been apart, as though they had always been close-knit and loving. Jim Hamra, Paula’s husband, was very taken with the way Joe Jr. handled himself that day. “He stood there, off to the side of the room, shoulders back, head up, studying the people as if he was figuring out who he knew and who he didn’t know. He then worked the room, hugging some people, shaking hands with some, and he seemed completely at ease.”

All was forgiven. Joseph DiMaggio Jr. had come home to his papa.

F
IVE MONTHS AFTER JOE DIMAGGIO’S
death, his son Joe DiMaggio Jr. died of an asthma-induced heart attack in Northern California, ending, finally, a two-decade struggle with alcohol, drug abuse, and homelessness. After his death at the age of fifty-seven, a cousin, Maria Amato Goodman, said of him, “He had a brilliant mind. He was one of the intelligentsia. But he lived in the shadow of his father and could not rise above that.” Unlike his father, the son went to eternity without pomp and circumstance. No church service attended his leaving, and no richness of mourners paid their respects. Joe Jr. was simply cremated, and his ashes were scattered at sea. “He marched to a different drummer,” Amato said of him. “He was sensitive to the people close to him. He was not a bad boy. He was confused about a lot of issues in his life.”

Perhaps the deep sensitivity, the superior intellect, the marching to his own beat were what so endeared Joe Jr. to Marilyn Monroe, who adored him. It was their love for the free-spirited Monroe that proved the only commonality between father and son, and one likes to think that perhaps in death, somewhere on the other side, they have all found one another and have made peace at last.