Aside from former baseball legends like Bob Feller and other pitchers who faced the great Joe D. from the 1930's through the early '50's, there aren't many people who could say they did what I did on that late summer day in 1987.
It was the first Sunday in August. My friend Mike, who worked as an auditor for The Bowery Savings Bank invited me to their annual corporate summer outing in Connecticut. Plenty of burgers, dogs, beer and bank teller cuties to indulge in so it was a no brainer. But there was going to be a very special guest - none other than Joltin' Joe Dimaggio who at that time also served as a tv pitchman for the now defunct Savings and Loan.
Dimaggio appeared at Mike's branch earlier that week and being the thoughtful friend he is had Dimaggio sign my baseball. I had Ted Williams sign the same ball a few years earlier, but it was stolen from my home in 2004 - that's another story.
I was still playing Stan Musial baseball, and although my control was erratic to say the least, I could still bring it. So getting a chance to see Joe D. in person and maybe getting a picture of him would make quite a memory.
Whenever I could, I'd pitch to Mike, just to keep sharp. Although he was an accomplished martial artist, Mike wasn't the most gifted catcher I ever threw to. Slow reflexes. Kind of an amateur Jorge Posada as far as balls getting past him.
So here we were having a catch in this wonderfully wooded park on a lazy, hazy summer afternoon. I started loosening up, feeling like a poor man's version of Goose Gossage, and I felt it was time to let it fly. A high hard one that I can still see clear as day 24 years later. Sure enough, Mike couldn't get his glove up in time and the slick white ball went zipping past him, ricocheting off a tree about 20 feet behind him. It then took a detour at the exact moment a group of business suits emerged from the thicket. Holy sh*t! It just missed Dimaggio by inches! He had his head down while he was talking to the corporate yes men and never even saw it. Mike and I froze for a moment with petrified grins before thanking the powers that be that he wasn't going to get fired and I wasn't going to join Bernie Getz on the front page of The New York Post.
Dimaggio and his group walked to a grassy spot and stopped, completely unaware of what nearly happened. Out of curiosity, Mike and I walked up to them. There we were standing right next to the man voted "The Greatest Living Ballplayer" and here he was, the guy who was the idol of hundreds of millions worldwide, who actually brought Chicken Delight back home to Marilyn Monroe (for a short time), and who looked me right in the eye and continued to say whatever he was saying to the suits, just like I was a close personal friend. I still get goose bumps just thinking about it.
Joe D. and me. Go figure.
Later that afternoon Mike and I played in the company softball game. I smoked not one, but two pitches over the left field fence, both over 340 feet away on the regulation baseball field. I actually won a trophy for being the star of the game. But the real trophy will always be the picture in my mind of the legendary Joe Dimaggio walking, head down, completely oblivious to the heater that nearly made me a Trivial Pursuit legend.
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