My Interview with Joe DiMaggio
"I was there..."
by Matt Sieger
Seven of the American League's 1937 All-Star players: Lou Gehrig, Joe Cronin, Bill Dickey, Joe DiMaggio, Charlie Gehringer, Jimmie Foxx, and Hank Greenberg. All seven would eventually be elected to the Hall of Fame.
Photo: United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID hec.22989
In the summer of 1974, between my junior and senior years at Cornell University, I was freelancing for the Ithaca New Times, a weekly newspaper in Ithaca, NY. My editor suggested I write a feature story about the Oneonta Yankees, a New York Yankees farm team in the New York-Penn League.
The NY-P, founded in 1939 as a Class D League as the PONY (Pennsylvania-Ontario-New York) League, became a Class A league in 1963. The NY-P was the oldest continuously operated Class A league in professional baseball until its demise after the 2019 season.
Oneonta is about a two-hour drive from Ithaca. My only problem was that I didn’t have a car. But back then, many young people hitchhiked. It was not yet considered very dangerous (although in 1973 the FBI did put out a poster warning drivers that a hitcher might be a “sex maniac” or a “vicious murderer”!). I guess I didn’t look like either, so I managed to hitch a ride to Oneonta.
Oneonta is a small town (around 16,000 people then, 14,000 now) nestled in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains. In the 1940s and 1950s, the town supported the Oneonta Red Sox, a Boston farm team in the now-defunct Canadian-American League. Frank Malzone, the Golden Glove third baseman for Boston in the fifties and sixties, played at Oneonta in 1949.
The Yankees took over the franchise in 1967. Notable Oneonta Yankees alumni include Don Mattingly (1979), Bernie Williams (1987) and Jorge Posada (1991). During my visit in 1974, the roster included Dennis Werth, a catcher who played in the big leagues for parts of four seasons and whose stepson is Jayson Werth, the retired All-Star outfielder. Also on the squad was Mike Heath, then a shortstop, who spent 14 seasons in the Major Leagues, mostly as a catcher. The president of the team was Sam Nader, cousin of the famous consumer advocate Ralph Nader.
The team played at the well-groomed Damaschke Field, where attendance averaged around 1,000 a game. Admission was $1.25 for adults and 60 cents for children.
I had intended to just spend the day, do my interviews and hitch a ride back home. But General Manager Nick Lambros informed me that I happened to arrive the day before Famous Yankee Night, an annual promotional event when the team brings in a former Yankee star. Well, the star that year was Joe DiMaggio! The next evening 3,000 people jammed into Damaschke Field to see Joltin’ Joe before the game. He signed autographs, talked with the fans and took a few swings for old times’ sake.
I wouldn’t be able to stay that late, but Mr. Lambros invited me to a small press conference the next afternoon on his backyard patio. So, after sleeping the night on the floor of an apartment shared by some of the players (one of them was Lou Turco, a pitcher I had played summer baseball with in New Jersey), I headed over to the press conference. As we sat on the patio sipping lemonade, Mr. Lambros emerged through the screen door of his home and announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Joe DiMaggio!” And behind him came the dapper, dignified Yankee Clipper himself.
As a 21-year-old cub reporter, I was in awe as DiMaggio sat down in a lawn chair right next to me. He would turn 60 in November, but apart from the silver hair, he looked like he could still be playing center field for the Bronx Bombers.
Zeenut baseball card of Joe Dimaggio when he was playing for the San Francisco Seals from 1932-36.
Image: wikimedia commons
As I wrote in my August 24, 1974, article for the Ithaca New Times, “Even if he can no longer hit that high inside fastball, the grace and dignity that characterized him on and off the field still shine through.” What impressed me most was how unassuming and approachable and congenial he was. Here was the great Joe DiMaggio in a tiny town with just a few folks out on the patio, and he treated me and the others with the utmost respect, taking time to fully answer all our questions.
Here’s the portion of the article from my interview with him that day:
The Yankee Clipper reminisced: “I think I played in one of the most beautiful eras in baseball. At that time you had a different type of fan and a different type of ballplayer. We used to sit in the hotel lobbies and talk baseball for hours. Nowadays all the players have business interests and other things on the side to think about. But I don’t blame them for that.
“As far as ability, that’s hard to say. There were only eight teams in each league when I was playing. Today you have 12, and I believe that’s diluted the talent a bit. Also, they’re bringing along young ballplayers a little too quickly, so that they come out of the minor leagues unrefined. I remember when I was coaching for Oakland and Reggie Jackson first arrived. He couldn’t catch a fly ball. We’d hit it to him, he’d pound the glove a few times, and the ball would drop 20 feet behind him. I’m not kidding.”
Jackson has come a long way since then, and DiMaggio says it’s because he’s a hard worker. He feels that natural ability goes only so far. “There’s no perfect ballplayer,” said the man who may have been the closest to it. “We all strive for it but there’s no one who ever gets there. I worked for hours and hours in practice just charging ground balls.”
After talking a little about his famous 56-game hitting streak, his daffy roommate Lefty Gomez and the great Yankee manager Joe McCarthy, DiMaggio was goaded into answering one of the most frequently asked questions: “What was your greatest thrill in baseball?”
“I’ll tell you one of them,” he replied. “Putting on the New York Yankees pinstripes in spring training for the very first time.”
It was such a thrill to interview the Yankee Clipper that day. Who knew that 44 years later I would move to Martinez (Joltin’ Joe’s home town)?
Matt Sieger, now retired, is a former sports reporter and columnist for The Vacaville Reporter. He is the author of The God Squad: The Born-Again San Francisco Giants of 1978. Matt lives in Martinez. This article first appeared in The Vacaville Reporter.