Joe Dimaggio

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.

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.

Only players in World Series as rookies and in final seasons: 1. Joe DiMaggio in 1936 and 1951 2. Jerry Coleman in 1949 and 1957 3. Gil McDougald in 1951 and 1960 4. Jackie Robinson in 1947 and 1956 5. Jim Gilliam in 1953 and 1966 6. Paul Derringer in 1931 and 1945 7. Willie Mays in 1951 and 1973 * Source: Baseball Digest (February 2000)

Joe DiMaggio's lawyer cheated him out of several hundred thousand dollars in memorabilia in the last days of his life, according to a biography on the New York Yankee great. In his book, "Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life," Richard Ben Cramer zeroed in on Morris Engelberg, DiMaggio's lawyer and friend through the 1990s. "Absurd," said Engelberg from his home in Hollywood, Fla.

Ending a bitter legal dispute over how to best honor the legacy of New York Yankee legend Joe DiMaggio, city officials have reached an agreement with the late player's estate to rename in his honor a tiny North Beach park where DiMaggio and his brothers played as boys.

An effort to keep Yankee legend Joe DiMaggio's name off the San Francisco playground where he honed his legendary baseball skills as a youth got thumbed out at the plate Thursday by a federal judge. U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard in Miami rejected a lawsuit by DiMaggio's estate, saying that she lacks jurisdiction over a dispute involving the West Coast city's attempt to honor its native son.

Saying the memory of baseball star Joe DiMaggio should not "be held hostage to the whim of that hero's estate," San Francisco asked a judge Thursday to allow it to go ahead and name a city park after the late, great New York Yankee. In legal papers filed with U.S. District Court in Miami, a lawyer representing San Francisco asked the court to reject legal efforts by attorney Morris Engelberg, who controls the right to commercial uses of DiMaggio's name, to block the naming of the park.

Joe DiMaggio's estate went to court this week demanding that a San Francisco playground be stripped of the legendary ballplayer's name, saying that the park is not fit for the honor. The estate asked a federal court in Miami to order the city and county to remove DiMaggio's name and destroy any playground letterhead, promotional material or signs using his name. The complaint, filed Wednesday on behalf of DiMaggio LLC, also asks for unspecified damages.

In an interview with the British Sports magazine Total Sport, former heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield was asked: "Is God telling you to quit?" Answer: "That's between God and me." Holyfield was also asked to comment on how he squares his religious beliefs with the fact he has fathered multiple children out of wedlock. Answer: "I can understand how it looks. I can understand why people might think that I'm a hypocrite. But who are they to judge me? I don't judge anyone else.