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DiMaggio auction appalling
JOHN MCGRATH; THE NEWS TRIBUNE
The late Joe DiMaggio ranks among the handful of the greatest baseball players of all time, but I’m not sure I want his old shower sandals for $400 or $500.
Come to think of it, I’m very sure I don’t want his old shower sandals, at any price.
I’ve never been crazy about putting my bare feet into something – as my mom would say – that we’re not sure where it’s been. And if you’re reluctant to wear somebody else’s old shower sandals, what else do you with them? Hang them above the fireplace? Use them as a dining-table table centerpiece?
No, DiMaggio’s shower sandals would end up in a basement box along with the orphan slippers and scarves and handkerchiefs I don’t use because, well, I’m not sure where they’ve been, either.
Other mementos from Joe DiMaggio’s life I don’t want, but will soon have a chance to purchase at an auction: his Army dog tags; his 12-gauge shotgun; his California driver’s license; his passport; his marriage certificate (one of them, anyway); and the gown he wore while making his 1990 commencement address at Columbia University.
The gown is expected to fetch a minimum bid of $1,000. The cap, I presume, is extra.
Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
He’s gone to a place, for those of us who believe in that sort of thing, where he’s contemplating the notion of his shower sandals and Army dog tags made available to the highest bidder and thinking: OK, they can stop now.
Sorry, Joe. It’s out of your hands.
More than 1,000 items from DiMaggio’s estate are scheduled to be auctioned next month in New York. Between the big-ticket baseball stuff (his 1947 MVP plaque and his last, game-worn uniform, from the 1951 World Series) and every last detail plumbed from his wallet – even his frequent-flyer airline cards – the haul is expected to net at least $4 million for DiMaggio’s heirs.
A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Florida, so the weirdness of investing several thousand dollars in the driver’s license of a dead man will be mitigated by the fact some of the money goes to a good cause.
Excuse me while I gag.
Between his retirement in 1951 and his death in 1999, DiMaggio’s job – and he was as skilled at it as he was at hitting and fielding – was to portray a legend who kept the public from intruding on his privacy. A dashing, elegant figure rarely seen without a sport coat and tie, DiMaggio was seen as the quintessential American success story: A high-school dropout, the son of an immigrant fisherman who spoke little English, the Yankee Clipper achieved a status befitting royalty.
He was regaled in poems and pop songs and essays and short stories. His marriage to Marilyn Monroe might’ve been the 20th century’s most celebrated amalgamation of the rich and famous; that it lasted only nine months merely sustained the mystery of the nothing-in-common romance.
The love letters Marilyn wrote to Joe will be for sale at the auction, too.
One letter, anticipated to open with a minimum bid of $20,000, begins with Marilyn referring to Joe as “My Dad.” We knew the poor girl had some issues, but 43 years after she killed herself, can’t we just leave it at that?
The letter continues: “I don’t know how to tell you how much I miss you. I love you till my heart could burst. All I love, all I want, all I need is you ... forever.”
It goes on and on, as love letters do. But I’m sorry. As disinclined as I am to wear someone else’s shower sandals, I’m even more repelled reading somebody else’s love letters.
Just because the person who wrote the love letter happened to be Marilyn Monroe – and the recipient of the love letter was Joe DiMaggio – is no excuse to pry into on a conversation neither of them wanted us to hear.
It’s none of my business, but maybe I’m just an grumpy prude.
“Everyone writes a book, everyone says they know this or that about them, but the only two people who really knew were Joe and Marilyn,” David Hunt, president of the auction house hired to sell off the DiMaggio Estate collection, told the Chicago Sun-Times the other day. “These letters are a first-source documentation that illustrate the marriage was very real and they were very much in love.
“The letter she wrote him before she died shows just how much in love she was with him.”
And it’s for sale, along with DiMaggio’s shower sandals and Army dog tags and passport.
Excuse me while I gag again.
After Marilyn Monroe died, her ex-husband made it a point to place roses at her grave three times a week. It was a ritual that lasted for 20 years, and then, for reasons unknown, DiMaggio stopped making his pilgrimage.
Nothing is mentioned on the DiMaggio Estate auction about flowers preserved from Marilyn’s grave. Too bad. Somebody wasn’t thinking.
Those things would’ve made a ton.
JOHN MCGRATH; THE NEWS TRIBUNE
The late Joe DiMaggio ranks among the handful of the greatest baseball players of all time, but I’m not sure I want his old shower sandals for $400 or $500.
Come to think of it, I’m very sure I don’t want his old shower sandals, at any price.
I’ve never been crazy about putting my bare feet into something – as my mom would say – that we’re not sure where it’s been. And if you’re reluctant to wear somebody else’s old shower sandals, what else do you with them? Hang them above the fireplace? Use them as a dining-table table centerpiece?
No, DiMaggio’s shower sandals would end up in a basement box along with the orphan slippers and scarves and handkerchiefs I don’t use because, well, I’m not sure where they’ve been, either.
Other mementos from Joe DiMaggio’s life I don’t want, but will soon have a chance to purchase at an auction: his Army dog tags; his 12-gauge shotgun; his California driver’s license; his passport; his marriage certificate (one of them, anyway); and the gown he wore while making his 1990 commencement address at Columbia University.
The gown is expected to fetch a minimum bid of $1,000. The cap, I presume, is extra.
Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
He’s gone to a place, for those of us who believe in that sort of thing, where he’s contemplating the notion of his shower sandals and Army dog tags made available to the highest bidder and thinking: OK, they can stop now.
Sorry, Joe. It’s out of your hands.
More than 1,000 items from DiMaggio’s estate are scheduled to be auctioned next month in New York. Between the big-ticket baseball stuff (his 1947 MVP plaque and his last, game-worn uniform, from the 1951 World Series) and every last detail plumbed from his wallet – even his frequent-flyer airline cards – the haul is expected to net at least $4 million for DiMaggio’s heirs.
A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Florida, so the weirdness of investing several thousand dollars in the driver’s license of a dead man will be mitigated by the fact some of the money goes to a good cause.
Excuse me while I gag.
Between his retirement in 1951 and his death in 1999, DiMaggio’s job – and he was as skilled at it as he was at hitting and fielding – was to portray a legend who kept the public from intruding on his privacy. A dashing, elegant figure rarely seen without a sport coat and tie, DiMaggio was seen as the quintessential American success story: A high-school dropout, the son of an immigrant fisherman who spoke little English, the Yankee Clipper achieved a status befitting royalty.
He was regaled in poems and pop songs and essays and short stories. His marriage to Marilyn Monroe might’ve been the 20th century’s most celebrated amalgamation of the rich and famous; that it lasted only nine months merely sustained the mystery of the nothing-in-common romance.
The love letters Marilyn wrote to Joe will be for sale at the auction, too.
One letter, anticipated to open with a minimum bid of $20,000, begins with Marilyn referring to Joe as “My Dad.” We knew the poor girl had some issues, but 43 years after she killed herself, can’t we just leave it at that?
The letter continues: “I don’t know how to tell you how much I miss you. I love you till my heart could burst. All I love, all I want, all I need is you ... forever.”
It goes on and on, as love letters do. But I’m sorry. As disinclined as I am to wear someone else’s shower sandals, I’m even more repelled reading somebody else’s love letters.
Just because the person who wrote the love letter happened to be Marilyn Monroe – and the recipient of the love letter was Joe DiMaggio – is no excuse to pry into on a conversation neither of them wanted us to hear.
It’s none of my business, but maybe I’m just an grumpy prude.
“Everyone writes a book, everyone says they know this or that about them, but the only two people who really knew were Joe and Marilyn,” David Hunt, president of the auction house hired to sell off the DiMaggio Estate collection, told the Chicago Sun-Times the other day. “These letters are a first-source documentation that illustrate the marriage was very real and they were very much in love.
“The letter she wrote him before she died shows just how much in love she was with him.”
And it’s for sale, along with DiMaggio’s shower sandals and Army dog tags and passport.
Excuse me while I gag again.
After Marilyn Monroe died, her ex-husband made it a point to place roses at her grave three times a week. It was a ritual that lasted for 20 years, and then, for reasons unknown, DiMaggio stopped making his pilgrimage.
Nothing is mentioned on the DiMaggio Estate auction about flowers preserved from Marilyn’s grave. Too bad. Somebody wasn’t thinking.
Those things would’ve made a ton.