Eight brave souls donned their masks and entered the 25 pristine acres of the New Mexico Veterans Memorial to discuss the life of The Yankee Clipper and how it was portrayed by Joe Durso, sportswriter. There they were greeted to the strains of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" and wafts of hot dogs, crackerjacks, soda pop, and kettle corn. The lovely Holly Golightly floated away and we were left with the legacy of Joltin' Joe, described by Keith as one of four Herculean Pillars of the Yankees during their 40 year domination of the sport: The Babe (#3), The Iron Man (#4), The Yankee Clipper (#5), and The Mick (#7). It didn't hurt to have the Big Apple Media Machine plus Yogi and some colorful managers. We learned that although the dimensions of the baseball have not changed since 1888, some of the rules have. Not all the players were on the same page:
Mike: Every book should start with a 'grabber' chapter, something to excite the senses and whet the reader's appetite for what is to come. What Durso starts with is an ad agency exec wandering into the Bowery Bank and musing over how to give the place a spokesman. Then he compounds his 'error' by scattering his writing with 3rd grade baseball metaphors: they made an error; they had strike one; no home run; three strikes. Great subject, mediocre portrayal, a half-hearted try for high drama that failed. Joe Durso easily has the worst Wikipedia article I've ever witnessed; his on-line obituary has four times as much information. Perhaps there is a reason. B-
Dick J: This book was good and not so good. "The Last American Knight" = where did we learn how that title was earned? I was frustrated with the writing in pages 46 to 67 about what happened after WWI. This book was padded. At times it was interesting, but seened to be written quickly. I have read a negative article on DiMaggio, how he would go to a fancy restaurant in Las Vegas, eat expensive meals, but never paid. And I don't give a flip about Marilyn Monroe. I didn't learn much about baseball or Joe DiMaggio. B
Rob Easterling (by phone via Karl): I had high hopes for this book. I've read and enjoyed several baseball books over the years. But, Chapter 1 in Durso's book discouraged me. It's all about how a NYC bank hired Joe D to shill for the bank. Not at all interesting. Why start with this? Chapter 2 about the DiMaggio family's emigration from Italy to San Francisco was more interesting and a more appropriate way to lead into a hero's life story. The book's subtitle, "The Last American Knight," irritated me more. England might justifiably celebrate knights, but Americans don't. Maybe Bobby Knight.
The rest of the book was not very interesting. Neither the hitting streak or Marilyn Monroe stories stirred much enthusiasm in me. I've characterized many of the non-fiction books we've read as follows: The author collects a lot of factoids, then struggles to link them -- cut and paste -- . This book falls in that category.
After I finished the book, I looked up the Amazon reviews, to see if I had missed something important. One reviewer wrote: "To write about Joe DiMaggio you have to write with love and passion for the man and the game. I just never got that feeling reading this book." My sentiment exactly. My Grade: C-
P.S. This spring I read "Summer of '98," by Mike Lupica. That was the summer of the home run hitters, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire. Lupica wrote with love and passion for the men and the game, and even more, he shared that love and passion with his sons. I laughed, I cried, I wrote a review.
One line from the cover flap connects with Durso's book: "Joe DiMaggio talks as he watches the Yankees have the kind of year he always had."
Karl Irons: I thought that the point of a biography was to shed insight into the person being written about – insight that hadn’t previously come to light. Not only doesn’t this book do that, it even makes the claim, after 250+ pages that it doesn’t matter. What nonsense!
Not only doesn’t this book fulfill the primary objective of a biography, it is also poorly written in places. There are too many pronouns, making it unclear at times who is actually being referenced. Thoughts or topics are raised, then not sufficiently explored. Throughout the book labels – adjectives – are applied to DiMaggio, many repeatedly, but in the end, I still don’t know which ones truly apply. That he was tremendously prideful is certain. That he was a great and revered all-around ball-player is also certain. Whether he was any or all of: noble, lonely, selfish, interesting, insecure, elegant, greedy, cheap, a hermit, arrogant, pampered, vain, self-assured, classy, boring, or a number of other labels attributed to him by the author or one or more of his acquaintances, is less certain.
The best parts of the book were the parts talking about baseball. Is there any other sport that has such great stories? Reading those, even the many that I already knew, was enjoyable. It probably wasn’t necessary to go through every single at bat during the 56-game hitting streak, but I did like reading about it. I especially liked reading the stories I hadn’t known, such as Casey Stengel releasing himself, firing himself, then resigning. Terrific stuff.
I haven’t yet decided whether I like and admire Joe DiMaggio the man, which I had hoped I would when I ordered the book. I had known that he played during a time when sportswriters made heroes of certain sportsman while protecting their image when faced with conflicting behaviors. That they made a hero of DiMaggio before he even played his first game in a Yankee uniform, I didn’t know. That Joe D delivered against all the hype is remarkable in that context. That he kept delivering is what earned him the reverential status he still enjoys today.
What I did admire about DiMaggio is that he took his position as role-model and professional sportsman very seriously. The book makes clear that he obviously went to great pains to hone and reinforce that image -- even if it was created by the press prior to him ever being a stand-out baseball star.
But, the paradoxes of the man bother me. How can someone claim not to want to be recognized walking down the street nor want to be surrounded by crowds drive around in a car with the vanity plate: “Joe D”? What did he talk about to his friends? What, if anything besides the sports pages, did he read? Why did he surround himself with friends so different than himself? Was it to divert attention, was it to remind him who he was not or was it something else? Maybe these things aren’t knowable, but after reading a biography, I expect to know whether or not I like the subject of the text. That I don’t, in this case, I see as a deficiency in the effort. C
Bob S: What Durso was doing was researching sportswriters comments on DiMaggio and the game. Thus the book was a tribute to sportswriters. Something positive: Joe and Marilyn both came from modest means; thus they understood each other, having climbed to the top. I felt the same about the book: I watched TV with my father, an amateur baseball player, but never felt the passion. I loved Dizzy Dean, Pee Wee Reese, yet overall found the sport rather boring. A good bio must examine the context within which the subject lived his Life. This book lacked that. B-
Jack F: My enjoyment of Durso's DiMaggio was influenced by the facts that I like baseball and Joe DiMaggio was one of my heroes when I was a kid in the late 40s and early 50s, even though he played for the Yankees and I was a Cleveland Indians fan. I learned quite a bit particularly about DiMaggio's life away from the ballpark. Durso's newspaper writing style was easy to read and I enjoyed his descriptions of specific games. It reminded me of listening to a game on the radio; however, he did seem to wander and repeat himself at times, leaving me to wonder about the chronology and how it fit into the current narrative. Fun read. Would recommend it to my Yankee friends, if I had any. B
Tom G: On the rules changed to delineate the Modern Era: in 1893, the distance from pitcher's mound
to home plate was changed from 50 ft to 60' 6" where it remains today. Ballpark size was open; however new parks had to have 350' down the line and 400' to center.
From the book, I learned that DiMaggio was painfully, horribly shy. He did not know hot to handle people (and sports writers). 'The Last American Knight' refers to the last athlete that was poised and noble. This largely had to do with the era in which he played. In his era, sportswriters would fawn over these 'heroes.' I learned a bit: B
Charlie: I was prejudiced in that I am not a sports fan. My choice for a biography would be someone who used their noodle: was incredibly smart, creative. An athlete is more instinctive than cerebral. Reminds me of a Monty Python skit where the sportswriter is interviewing the soccer star after the big game: "You've won! How did you do it?" "I kicked the ball into the net."
I don't like the sportswriters style of writing - athletes are ordinary guys with extraordinary talents. B
Keith: the book had too much detail. I played in two semi-pro games for $5 a game. B+
Bob S: I wish to share a baseball experience with you. As I mentioned, my Dad was a pitcher. He grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, There were only a couple of hundred Jewish families in his youth around 1920 but there was an amateur Jewish baseball team and he was their pitcher.
When I was young, perhaps five or six we went to Lake Worth near Fort Worth where there was an amusement area with rides and games of chance. One of the games was one of those booths with a bulls eye about the size of home plate with a lever connected to a platform where a man sat over a glassed-in tub of water and every time you hit the bulls eye with a regulation baseball the lever would release the platform and drop the man into the water. I would guess the bulls eye was about 40 or 50 feet from the counter where the balls were held.
Every time you hit the bulls eye you received three more balls. My dad gave the man a quarter and got three balls. I think he only hit the bulls eye once in the first three balls, but then he got the range and started hitting the bulls eye almost every time. After about twenty minutes the man refused to sit on the platform over the water any longer, because he was so waterlogged and dejected. At that point we left the game with about 50 balls left on the counter.
My Dad had the best eye hand coordination of any one I ever met. I think I have mentioned that he was on the TCU golf team in the late 20's and an NCAA letterman. But his pitching was what I remembered from that evening at Lake Worth.
