Photos courtesy The Boston Red Sox
By Ron Hayes
OCEAN RIDGE — His older brother was “Joltin’ Joe,” the baseball legend with the 56-game hitting streak. He was the “Little Professor,” the 5-foot-9 center fielder with spectacles. But in the hearts of Red Sox fans, Dom DiMaggio was as big a hero, and a nicer man.
A seasonal resident of Pelican Cove for more than 20 years, Mr. DiMaggio died May 7 at his summer home in Marion, Mass., while watching the Red Sox beat Cleveland 13-3. He was 92 and had been suffering from pneumonia.
“He was in a haze, but he knew what was going on,” said Emily DiMaggio, his wife of 60 years. “You could tell by the smile on his face that he was pleased.”
Signed to the Red Sox in 1940, Mr. DiMaggio enlisted in the U.S. Navy after the 1942 season, then returned to the team in 1946.
He retired in 1953 as a .298 career hitter. He batted .300 four times and led the American League in runs twice and triples and stolen bases once each. He was a member of the Red Sox Hall of Fame and still holds the team hitting record of 34 consecutive games in 1949. That number doesn’t approach his older brother’s all-time 56-game hitting streak of 1941, but the fans in Fenway Park retaliated with a ditty:
“Oh, Dominic DiMaggio,
“He's better than his brother Joe!”
And if not a better player, he was by all accounts a kinder one, always happy to spend time signing autographs and chatting with fans, unlike his more famous, and famously prickly, brother.
“I know a lot of athletes and some are nice and some are not so nice,” said John Sullivan of West Palm Beach, a former executive with the Topps baseball card company and a friend for more than 50 years. “Some are full of themselves, but that was not Dominic. He could be in a circle of people and the kids are dragging on him and asking for his autograph, but it never got him upset. He just did what he had to do and laughed.
“He never achieved his brother’s fame,” Sullivan said, “but he was a better person, in my opinion.”
Dominic Paul DiMaggio was born Feb. 12, 1917, in San Francisco, the youngest of the nine children of Guiseppe and Rosalie DiMaggio. Like his older brothers, Joe and Vince, Mr. DiMaggio got his start with the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League.
Joe DiMaggio died in 1999. Vince, who also played 10 seasons in the National League, died in 1986.
After leaving baseball, Mr. DiMaggio founded a company that manufactured automobile upholstery.
He was a supporter of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Pediatric Oncology Support Team at St. Mary’s Medical Center and hosted golf tournaments both in Massachusetts and Palm Beach County for these and other charities.
In addition to his wife, Mr. DiMaggio is survived by two sons, Dominic Jr., of Atkinson, N.H., and Peter of Westford. Mass.; a daughter, Emily of Wayland, Mass.; six grandchildren; and several nieces and nephews.
A funeral Mass was held May 11 in Wellesley, Mass.
Donations in Mr. DiMaggio’s memory may be made to the DiSanctis Clinic Research Fund, c/o MGH Development Office, 165 Cambridge St., Boston, MA, 02114.
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