Joe Dimaggio

Joe DiMaggio Jr., the only child of baseball great Joe DiMaggio, died late Friday at a hospital in the Northern California town of Antioch, apparently of natural causes, hospital officials said Saturday. He was 57. He was the only son of DiMaggio and Dorothy Arnold, an actress whom the sports legend married in 1939. The athlete had no children with his second wife, Marilyn Monroe. The younger DiMaggio was estranged from his father and had seen him infrequently over the last few years.

One version of the story holds that Joe DiMaggio and Frank Sinatra were having dinner at the Villa Capri restaurant in Hollywood on a November evening in 1954 when they got the tip: A private investigator phoned to say the ballplayer's estranged wife, Marilyn Monroe, was inside a nearby apartment building, possibly with a lover. Without bothering to pay the bill, DiMaggio stormed out of the eatery, followed by Sinatra and various associates, as well as Billy Karen, the restaurant maitre d'. Someone volunteered to pay the bill later, but the maitre d' responded that the bill was no problem, he just wanted "in on this thing," author J. Randy Taraborrelli wrote in "The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe.

The death of Joe DiMaggio (March 9) brings back memories. Growing up in northeast Ohio, we were all Cleveland Indian fans. In the late '30s, the highlight of my summer was my dad taking me to Cleveland to see the Yankees and Indians do battle. It always seemed that Bob Feller would be the Cleveland pitcher. The score would be tied going into the eighth or ninth inning when the Yankee Clipper's bat met one of Feller's fast balls, knocking it out of Municipal Stadium for a home run to win the game.

It was the 1949 All-Star game, second inning, two men on base, and, as impossible as it might seem today, Don Newcombe was summoned from the bullpen to face a complete stranger. It was someone he had never seen before, someone whose name he barely knew, someone whose accomplishments he never followed. Now batting: Joe DiMaggio? "That's right," Newcombe says today, laughing. "Back then, what would a black player know about Joe DiMaggio?" As one of four African Americans who integrated the All-Star game in 1949, the Dodgers rookie Newcombe was painfully unaware of the identity of nearly every white player in a league that had long shunned his race.

Former New York Yankee great Joe DiMaggio underwent heart surgery Feb. 5 in Mt. Sinai Medical Center, a hospital spokeswoman said Wednesday. According to publicist Judy Stanton, the 72-year-old Hall of Fame member entered the hospital Feb. 3, and was diagnosed as suffering from arrhythmia, a slow heart rate. Following tests, doctors recommended he receive a pacemaker, and the procedure was performed by Dr. Philip Samet.

The nature of man is to resist and, by resisting, to snap the shackles of slavery, to topple history's tyrants and, if possible, to do as little as possible around the house. I'm good at that. I'm not sure how I'd do at chain-snapping or tyrant-toppling, but I doubt there's a man alive who can match my facility at resisting the job of taking out the garbage. I am to garbage-ducking what Joe Dimaggio was to baseball.

"They lost today," the boy told him. "That means nothing. The great DiMaggio is himself again." --ERNEST HEMINGWAY in "The Old Man and the Sea." He broke in 50 years ago on a May afternoon. The country was fighting out of the Depression and Prohibition was over. "Gone with the Wind" was published that year and Boulder Dam was completed. The pitcher for the St. Louis Browns that day in the Bronx was Jack Knott.

It's ever harder to celebrate a sport at once swollen by television money and eroded by greed. One where even klutzy journeymen are millionaires. Where mindless fans taunt players, who then mindlessly charge like frothing pit bulls after their tormentors. Where players are apt to switch teams like toothpaste. It's ever harder to applaud. Yet Ross Greenburg's "When It Was a Game" does just that on the eve of Tuesday's All-Star Game.

When Joseph Paul DiMaggio died at 84 in 1999, there were few people left alive who had ever seen him play. His time as a ballplayer (1936-1951) preceded the triumph of television and was witnessed by paying customers in an era when there were no major league teams west of the Mississippi. To be sure, his accomplishments as a New York Yankee glittered on the sports pages of the time, and his form as a batter, glimpsed in movie house newsreels, was powerful and elegant.

The editors of USA Today Baseball Weekly weren't waiting for more bad news about Joe DiMaggio before being lavish with coverage of the New York Yankee great's career. Last week's issue of the paper, published more than a month into DiMaggio's stay in a Florida hospital, was fronted by a nostalgic portrait of the center fielder from his pinstriped heyday. "The DiMaggio legend: Celebrating the greatness of the Yankee Clipper" was the cover line, followed by five pages of memories inside.

The premise sounded like so much fun — during the innocent phase, before the pain began: a matchup of all-time Dodgers versus Yankees! Think greatest World Series ever. Imagine the possibilities. Imagine the matchups, the drama, the personalities, the history. These are baseball's greatest World Series rivals. No two teams have met more often in the World Series. If it's not exactly Lakers-Celtics, it's close. "These are two of the historically most significant teams in baseball history," says NBC sportscaster and baseball author Bob Costas.

* 2007 -- Tony Gwynn, Cal Ripken Jr. * 2006 -- Bruce Sutter. * 2005 -- Wade Boggs, Ryne Sandberg. * 2004 -- Dennis Eckersley, Paul Molitor. * 2003 -- Gary Carter, Eddie Murray. * 2002 -- Ozzie Smith. * 2001 -- Kirby Puckett, Dave Winfield. * 2000 -- Carlton Fisk, Tony Perez. * 1999 -- George Brett, Nolan Ryan, Robin Yount. * 1998 -- Don Sutton. * 1997 -- Phil Niekro. * 1995 -- Mike Schmidt. * 1994 -- Steve Carlton. * 1993 -- Reggie Jackson. * 1992 -- Rollie Fingers, Tom Seaver.

A uniform worn by Joe DiMaggio in his final World Series sold for $195,500 Saturday at an auction of memorabilia from the Hall of Famer's storied career. The pinstriped flannel home uniform, with the Yankee Clipper's familiar No. 5 on the back, was captured by an anonymous bidder. DiMaggio wore the jersey during the 1951 World Series, where the Yankees defeated the New York Giants. According to Hunt Auctions Inc.

No longer can there be doubt about where Joe DiMaggio has gone. Dude has pulled on some gloves, tugged at a warm hat, strapped his feet onto a snowboard and is now shredding on a powder-laced mountain. In a sign of the mainstreaming of snowboarding, which only a few years ago was a sport seemingly restricted to teenage lunatics who reveled in a buzz-off attitude, Chris Klug, 30, the U.S.

Only sports figures to receive Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian award established by President John F. Kennedy in 1963: Arthur Ashe: 1993 Richard Petty: 1992 Ted Williams: 1991 Earl "Red" Blaik: 1986 Jackie Robinson: 1984 Paul "Bear" Bryant: 1983 Joe DiMaggio: 1977 Jesse Owens: 1976 Bob Kiphuth (Yale swimming coach with 528-12 record): 1963 * Source: World Features Syndicate

What: "Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel" Where: HBO When: Tonight, 10 The lead story on this edition of "Real Sports" deals with Joe DiMaggio, although if you're a DiMaggio fan you're not going to like it. The segment focuses on Richard Ben Cramer, who has written a biography that trashes the Yankee Clipper. Correspondent Bernard Goldberg interviews Cramer, who is not very likable whether you're a DiMaggio fan or not.

After half a century, a chill is falling over the strange, paradoxical romance between baseball and the man acclaimed its greatest living player. "I'm going to be cutting down on things like this," Joe DiMaggio said as he squeezed into his No. 5 Yankee pinstripes last weekend for the New York club's annual old-timers' game, at which he was singled out for a special tribute.

When Joseph Paul DiMaggio died at 84 in 1999, there were few people left alive who had ever seen him play. His time as a ballplayer (1936-1951) preceded the triumph of television and was witnessed by paying customers in an era when there were no major league teams west of the Mississippi. To be sure, his accomplishments as a New York Yankee glittered on the sports pages of the time, and his form as a batter, glimpsed in movie house newsreels, was powerful and elegant.