DIMAGGIO: Setting the Record Straight

The New York Yankees made Joe DiMaggio a household name, but it took Brooklyn-born, Florida-based attorney Morris Engelberg to make DiMaggio wealthy. Now, Engelberg puts his personal spin on the life and times of the Yankee Clipper, who died in 1999, with Engelberg by his side, after a short battle with lung cancer. But contrary to the book's provocative subtitle, Engelberg's effort is little more than a paean to DiMaggio, his childhood idol turned dream client. Engelberg writes that he regarded DiMaggio, whose affairs he managed for the last 16 years of the slugger's life, as his "best friend" rather than a client. Not surprisingly, the book reads as though it were written by a best friend, heavy on deference and light on detail—except when it comes to Engelberg's record-setting success in peddling DiMaggio to memorabilia dealers. Indeed, more baseballs are signed than swatted in this version of DiMaggio's life, while DiMaggio's legendary 13-year Hall-of-Fame career, which includes a record 56-game hitting streak and nine World Series rings, is recalled in a brisk 60 pages. Off the field, DiMaggio's famously complicated relationships, including those with his brother and rival, Red Sox outfielder Dom DiMaggio, and Yankee teammates like Gehrig and Mantle, are largely unexplored. Even chapters devoted to DiMaggio's relationships with ex-wife Marilyn Monroe, and his estranged son, Joe Jr., are shallow and disappointing. To his credit, Engelberg clearly made DiMaggio a rich man. But his almost unsettling reverence for and loyalty to his subject overwhelm any attempts, however timid, to truly understand one of the game's greatest and most enigmatic icons. Photos not seen by PW. (Feb. 25)

Forecast:MBI is backing this title with an $85,000 marketing campaign and a seven-city author tour, but this biography will still fall well short of Richard Ben Cramer's Joe DiMaggio.