DiMaggio diary reveals a regular Joe

A sampling of the entries showed pages filled with mundane details and occasionally interesting detours. They were set down on hotel and airline stationery, plain white or yellow legal paper, but never on personal letterhead.

“He’d bring them into my office, hand them to the office manager every month and say, ‘Tell Morris there’s good stuff in here for his book,’” said Morris Engelberg, DiMaggio’s lawyer. He added: “These writings really show who he is. He’s just a plain old Joe.”

Engelberg recently sold the collection of nearly 2,500 pages that are preserved in 29 binders to Steiner Sports.

At a news conference on Monday at Gallagher’s Steak House, one of DiMaggio’s favourites in New York, Steiner is expected to announce its plans to auction the trove in its entirety or page-by-page.

“We’re listing it at a minimum $1.5 million bid,” said Brandon Steiner, the chairman of the company: Each page is valued at $2,000 to $5,500.

DiMaggio wrote down when he woke up, flight numbers and boarding times. If he took a steam bath, he took note. On December 12, 1983, he visited his accountant. “Coffee made me an offer and we discussed at length what my counter bid should be,” he wrote.

There were breakfasts at the Stage Deli in Manhattan with pals. Lunch with Mayor Edward I Koch at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

DiMaggio was at the White House on December 8, 1987, for the signing of the treaty banning intermediate missiles by President Ronald W Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

“An historic time,” DiMaggio wrote. Then: “Left White House lawn at 11:15 am. Went out and shopped for a tuxedo shirt as I have lost so much weight my neck size is 15 1/2. Spent a couple of hours trying to find one.”

The entries illustrate DiMaggio’s frustrations with fans, players and former major leaguers who wanted his autograph.

From Anaheim, California, on July 8, 1989, he wrote: “Swamped with the signing of baseballs—pictures—radio and TV. Stress too much…”