DiMaggio: Setting the Record Straight

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Summary: For anyone interested in celebrity lives, loves and secrets
Review: DiMaggio:Setting the Record Straight is a page turner from the beginning. I turned right to the Marilyn Monroe chapter, then went back to the beginning and read right through to the end. I am not particularly a baseball person, but love to read about celebrity lives. This book gives lots of detail, is well-written and give access to DiMaggio's life in a way that matches my memories of him as a hero of America. The man who married Marilyn. You will be touched by the relationship between Engelberg and DiMaggio--it is the story of true friendship.

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Summary: DiMaggio From the Other Side
Review: I assumed that Setting the Record straight was meant to refute the charges brought by Richard Ben Cramer in his (2000) biography of Joe. It does parry most of those charges, but Engleberg is too shrewd to come out and name Cramer as the inspiration for the book. Why have your audience run and read Cramer's book too?

Engelberg's account is naturally more sympathetic than Cramer's. For instance, Cramer says that Joe was noted for having many random affairs with women, Engelberg says offhandedly that Joe had no trouble with the ladies. Cramer describes Joe's late in life autograph sessions as crass commercialism. Engelberg says that finally Joe DiMaggio was making the money that so many others had been making on his name.

It's these differences in presentation that characterizes the tone of both books. Cramer's "How dare you?" is Engelberg's "Way to go, Joe!"

A key Cramer source is Barry Halper, noted memorabilia collector and Yankee limited Partner. Cramer describes Halper's wife taking a cooking class in Europe just to cook Joe's favorite foods. To Cramer, Joe was an ingrate that didn't appreciate all the Halpers were doing for him.

Engelberg describes Halper as a leech that was always trying to make money from Joe. The essence of the relationship comes down to what happened to Joe's World Series rings that eventually Barry Halper possessed. The authors argue about whether they were stolen from Joe's hotel room or sold by Joe on the sly.

Still, Joe comes off as somewhat aloof in both books. Even Engelberg admits that Joe didn't appreciate him as much as he had wished, and even recounts his moodiness. These admissions reinforce the charge that Joe hadn't much humility, but few people lodge this complaint against Muhammed Ali.

The book centers on DiMaggio's later years when Engelberg served him as lawyer and friend, but there is still plenty of stuff about his playing career and relationship with Marilyn. The most offbeat passage is about Joe Jr. coming to live in his deceased father's house. It's not always remembered that Joe Jr. was the last known person who spoke to Marilyn Monroe on the night of her death. Junior tells Engelberg that Marilyn confessed her relationship with Bobby Kennedy and that she was going to come forward and expose them. He's certain the Kennedys were behind her murder. We've heard it before, but never from a source that close.

Engelberg says that he took no money from DiMaggio anytime in their friendship and I'd be interested in how Cramer would reconcile that with his account of Joe's later years.

Engelberg has a clear purpose in the book to clear the charges against him and to soften the image of DiMaggio painted by Cramer and it's largely successful. Helped by veteran sportswriter, Marv Schneider, the book offers smooth prose and it flows well from beginning to end. It's worth the time of any baseball fan.

Rating:
Summary: Better than Cramer's book
Review: I'll admit, Engelberg is a bit suspicious. This is a man who claims to love Joe but after his death he tried to sell personal items of Joe's (such as his credit card, social security card, etc.) I guess the best part of this book is that it has direct quotes from those who truly knew Joe, such as his granddaughters.
(In Cramer's book he barely mentions Joe's granddaughters, making it appear as if Joe had absolutely no family, when indeed he did.) Engelberg doesn't paint Joe out to be a saint or satan. For instance, Joe had no problem refusing an autograph to a man but he never did it to kids or women. Also in many biographies people claim that Joe hit his ex-wife but a woman who worked for Joe said that when Joe found out that her husband was beating her he told her to leave him because women shouldn't be treated that way.

Any review that actually praises Cramer should be null and void.

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Summary: Strike Three . . . and You're Out!
Review: Joe DiMaggio's "best friend for the last 16 years of his life" gives us his disappointing "insights" into a great baseball player, and if we are to believe the author(s) . . . a dismal human being. Suspicious, grasping and greedy, unable to sustain relationships, DiMaggio comes off as the ultimate spoiled athlete. It's as if he invented, "What's in it for me?" If there's an aspersion to be cast, Engelberg is quick to put it in Joe's mouth; virtually no one is immune: ML Baseball executives, fellow Yankees, brother Dom, son Joe, Jr., fans, promoters, the Hall of Fame, memorabilia dealers, etc. "Setting the Record Straight" is a real ball in the dirt.

There's little or nothing new here, either about baseball, DiMaggio's career, his team-mates, family or friends. DiMaggio died a rich man, thanks to his "friend," Morris, so we are told; and so what? Joe DiMaggio was true giant as a player, this book only tarnishes that image and would better have been left unwritten. I'm truly sad that I read it.