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DiMaggio: The Hero's Life

Johnny Dickshot Feb 13 2006 11:12 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Feb 15 2006 11:13 PM

Took forever to finish it, but a damn good bio this was. Richard Ben Cramer blows giant holes in the DiMaggio legend, then turns his bazooka at the prick who pried a World Series ring off his dead fingers. Along the way, tells a big story of an iconic legend, and does it skillfully. It's at it's best when he apes the phraseologies of the time to push the story along, for example, taking on the voices of the winking & drinking newspapermen of the 30s and 40s, exposing their complicity in the mythmaking better than he could ever say it himself. In a single graf, it's Joe, Daig, Dago, the Clipper and the Jolter. Really well done and as dad said, "honest enough to make your hair hurt."

Edgy DC Feb 13 2006 11:45 PM

It's amazing about these larger-than-life heroes and how their biographies turn out. Their greatness so isolates them from society that --- despite millions who would gladly drain their bathwater --- they only trust a very few, or one, and they consistently pick the wrong one(s). Elvis Syndrome, man. I look forward to cracking this one.

Scrapple8 Feb 14 2006 08:41 PM

I'll agree that the book was interesting, but cramer took some unnecessary shots at dimaggio and ventured into some really strange territory... like the size of his bat, if ya get what I mean.... and accepting the testimony of that chick who slept with a zillion men. the lawyer wrore a rebuttal, which i found in the bargain books at b&n, but have not yet read. Will get to it sometime, though.

Johnny Dickshot Feb 15 2006 10:06 AM

There's about 3 million copies of Engleberg's book at Strand. Fascinating how, partly because of recent sweeping biographies, the perceptions of Williams and DiMaggio have essentially flipped. Both Montville's book and Cramer's book were hard on the media of the time, NY for pumping up DiMag and Boston for aggressively keeping Williams down. Both sides drank a lot and in the end, couldn't be trusted to tell the truth.

Yancy Street Gang Feb 17 2006 01:41 PM

I read Cramer's book a few years ago. At first I was surprised by the rather snarky tone he took, but I got used to it after a while and enjoyed the book. Last month I read another of Cramer's books, How Isreal Lost in which he takes a no-holds-barred, highly opinionated look at the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Even on a serious subject, he had the same snarkiness. Another good book, though. I'd read him again.