Baseball is a game played by teams, and certainly the NY Yankees have had many great ones. Yet from 1936 to 1951, the Yankees were simply about Joe DiMaggio. DiMaggio was a man who has since become steeped in mythology. A man of limitations, but also great strengths. A man who didn't always seek the spotlight, but upon whom much of the nation would project and reflect it’s own ambitions and aspirations. Stories of DiMaggio's life after his retirement have painted a less then flattering image of the man. Biographer
Jerome Charyn, in his new work
Joe DiMaggio: The Long Vigil,
gives us a DiMaggio much more nuanced and arguably much more human.
My conversation with Jerome Charyn:
