Joe DiMaggio in Poland – May 1962
As a British fan of baseball, I have long advocated for the sport’s European heritage, unearthing and sharing stories that deserve to be remembered. I’m also a New York Yankees fan, of course, and Joe DiMaggio is perhaps my greatest hero of all-time. Naturally, then, my sweet spot is where DiMaggio’s adventures overlap with Europe. Hence this article about Joltin’ Joe in Rome. There is endless intrigue between the great man and my native continent, and I can never stop exploring.
There is another wrinkle to this dynamic, though. My wife, Patrycja, is Polish, and, therefore, I have strong ties to – and a natural interest in – that fascinating country. As such, imagine my surprise, excitement and interest recently when I discovered that Joe DiMaggio once visited Poland. I stumbled across that mesmerising factoid while thumbing through Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life, the magnum opus of Richard Ben Cramer. I have two copies of the book, a recurring source of wonderment, but have somehow missed this quirk for years.
Chronicling DiMaggio’s post-retirement role with VH Monette & Co, a wholesaler of American food products to US military bases around the world, Cramer wrote this: “On the road, it was worse: Joe was on the roller coaster all by himself. More and more, he chafed at his schedule – Air Force bases, naval stations, Army forts, and what the hell did he care?...Alaska to Florida, then over to Europe…that spring, Monette and Joe poked into Poland, and then they went to Moscow – because Monette wanted to see it.”
‘Monette’ refers to Val Monette, founder of the firm, which paid DiMaggio $100,000 per year to serve as executive vice president. Essentially a high-profile ambassador, DiMaggio spearheaded promotions for Monette, wining and dining military functionaries around the globe. By most accounts, DiMaggio was largely indifferent to the role, but the eye-popping salary massaged his infamous ego in the void that trailed his elapsed baseball career.
Frustratingly, my initial frantic searches found no further mention of Joe DiMaggio visiting Poland, but curiosity kept me awake at night. I had to learn more. I had to connect the dots. I had to know where he went in Poland, and when, and why. Oh, and what did Joe think of the country? Did he try kotlety or pierogi? An intense research project emerged.
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Embarking on an extensive European tour, promoting Monette, Joe DiMaggio boarded the SS France in New York on 27 April 1962. Accompanied by George Solitaire, a Broadway ticket broker, DiMaggio set sail for Europe. It was his first ocean crossing by ship, and he flashed a box of seasick pills to photographers while waving to assembled crowds.
The SS France stopped in Le Havre, France and Southampton, England – but it is unclear where DiMaggio disembarked. However, given his next reported steps, France is the most likely jumping-off point. DiMaggio reached Europe on 3 May, and worked his way to Italy via Paris, perhaps using trains.
On 8 May, DiMaggio spent time in Rome, as confirmed by a letter he wrote to Marilyn Monroe, his former wife and rekindled lover. Joe had previously visited Naples, per the handwritten note, before enjoying a tour of the Vatican, including a rare glimpse of the Pope’s private apartments. “Tomorrow evening, the grind starts again,” DiMaggio wrote. “I’m off to Athens, Greece.”
Indeed, DiMaggio was pictured with workers of a US commissary store in Athens, then proceeded to Turkey. Joe subsequently worked his way to Germany, a key Monette hub, via Switzerland.
On 18 May, DiMaggio visited Rhein-Main Air Base near Frankfurt, Germany. “He’s autographed papers and various sorts of baseball gear in France, Italy, Greece, Turkey and several cities of Germany,” reported Steve Lakos of the Stars and Stripes military newspaper. That morning, Joe visited the base’s commissary and elementary school, before appearing at a local food emporium. DiMaggio then watched two innings of a baseball game back at the Frankfurt military base, but left early to catch his next flight.
As detailed in a subsequent Stars and Stripes retrospective by editor Bob Wicker, Lakos interviewed DiMaggio at Frankfurt Airport. “I was on my way to Moscow on a business trip,” DiMaggio told Wicker. “He [Lakos] gave me his Stars and Stripes card and invited me to drop by if I was ever in the area again.”
Accordingly, we can reasonably assert that Joe DiMaggio left Frankfurt in the late afternoon or early evening of 18 May 1962. For argument’s sake, let’s call it 5pm. Two days later, on 20 May, DiMaggio sent a postcard to Marilyn from Copenhagen, Denmark. “Have a short stop over here in Copenhagen en route for the ‘long underwear country,’” Joe wrote. “Should be there in about three hours.” We can therefore deduce that DiMaggio had a brief layover in Copenhagen, likely to refuel, before journeying on.
According to the Associated Press and Los Angeles Times, DiMaggio arrived in Moscow, Russia, on 21 May 1962. United Press International photos show him outside St Basil’s Cathedral in daylight, meaning we can reasonably estimate a 70-hour gap between DiMaggio’s Frankfurt departure and his Moscow landing. Allowing, say, 10 hours for rest, and a further five hours for general airport manoeuvring, we are left with around 55 hours unaccounted for, bridging 18-20 May.
I initially considered the possibility that DiMaggio ‘poked into Poland’ from Frankfurt, then proceeded to Copenhagen, but that seems impractical. Based on timetables from 1962, neither Lot, the Polish national airline, nor Lufthansa, the German equivalent, flew direct between Frankfurt and any Polish city.
More likely, then, is that DiMaggio hopscotched from Frankfurt to Copenhagen to Warsaw to Moscow. Lufthansa did fly between Frankfurt and Copenhagen, and Lot did fly between Copenhagen and Warsaw, and between Warsaw and Moscow. Moreover, the Pittsburgh Press reported that DiMaggio ‘flew’ into the USSR, rather than travelling by road or rail. Therefore, DiMaggio could feasibly have taken a Frankfurt-Copenhagen-Warsaw-Moscow route within the available timeframe, aligning with his estimated time of arrival in ‘long underwear country’ and in accordance with Cramer’s assertion of him visiting ‘Poland…then…Moscow.’
Such a timeline likely places DiMaggio in Poland on 20 May 1962. A day earlier, an ocean away, Monroe, his one true love, engaged in perhaps the most infamous act of her tragic dénouement: singing ‘Happy birthday, Mr President,’ to John F Kennedy at a New York gala celebrating his 45th birthday. Considered a public declaration of Monroe’s private affection for JFK, the stunning moment gave DiMaggio morose closure on his rollercoaster tryst.
“Joe saw that even in Europe – couldn’t get away from those film clips anywhere,” wrote Cramer. “There she was, in a skin-coloured, skin-tight gown – rhinestones sewn in, shining from strategic spots…and rubbing her hands up her thighs, across her belly, as she woozily breathed out her song – ‘making love to the president,’ as Dorothy Kilgallen wrote, ‘in the direct view of forty million Americans.’”
“That’s when Joe’s thrill ride hit bottom. In his view, she might as well have told him to his face: he was only in line for sloppy seconds. As it was, she’d told the whole rest of the world: treat her as a toy and she’d put on a show for you – but love her all your life, like Joe DiMaggio did…and she played him for a chump.”
It is tempting to visualise DiMaggio learning of Monroe’s betrayal while in Poland. In my mind’s eye, I can see Joe sitting outside a Warsaw café, in the shadows of the imposing Pałac Kultury i Nauki, sipping an espresso, smoking a cigarette, and leafing through an international copy of the New York Times, bearing news of Marilyn and JFK. Yes, a little creative licence is required to imagine such a scenario, but it is not entirely implausible. In fact, from the sparse evidence we have, it is one of the more likely potential scenarios.
* * *
Regardless of the route that took him there, DiMaggio in Moscow, during the Cold War, is a fascinating tale in its own right. “The Russians, who claim to have created baseball, didn’t recognise Joe DiMaggio, the most famous player of modern times, as he walked the streets of Moscow as a sightseer,” wrote Jimmy Cannon in a 24 May edition of his nationally syndicated sports column. “DiMaggio told me only one woman, a guide in the Kremlin Museum, identified him without prompting.”
DiMaggio told the American Embassy he would visit Moscow strictly as a tourist, and expected to go west again almost instantly. He spent time in the Red Square, visiting St Basil’s Cathedral and the Bolshoi Theatre, before departing. According to the Associated Press, DiMaggio left Russia for Denmark, en route for Berlin. However, a stray AP wirephoto, carried 26 May by the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette, also mentions a stop in Finland.
Surmising – for argument’s sake, and contrary to Cramer’s reporting – that DiMaggio did not visit Poland on his inward journey to Russia, one possible route on Joe’s return from the USSR could have taken him from Moscow to Finland to Copenhagen. From the Danish capital, he possibly could have taken a ferry to Szczecin, Poland. This CIA document on Polish liners confirms a Szczecin-Copenhagen route for cargo at that time, so perhaps Monette used his freight-forwarding contacts to quickly ‘see Poland.’ From Szczecin, DiMaggio could have travelled to Berlin, less than 100 miles away.
However, that seems overly complicated and convoluted. Per one online air miles calculator, a direct Moscow-Copenhagen-Berlin route equates to roughly 1,200 miles, whereas diverting to, say, Helsinki and Szczecin adds another 125 miles to the trip. Would Joe DiMaggio have done that – and invited the unnecessary logistical burden of ferry travel – just to see Poland? Maybe, but I doubt it, ultimately. There are too many moving parts there.
Another possibility, of course, is that DiMaggio hopped from Moscow to Finland to Copenhagen to Berlin – as reported by the AP – before then ‘poking into Poland.’ However, Joe also made an unexpected appearance at the Stars and Stripes Press Club – in the Griesheim district of Frankfurt, 350 miles south of Berlin – on his return to Germany from Russia, taking Steve Lakos up on his earlier offer. “The Yankee Clipper had been on a corporate promotional tour of Europe, and was just returning from Moscow,” reported Stars and Stripes. That is noteworthy because Poland is located to the east of Germany and, thus, a Copenhagen-Berlin-Poland route requires doubling-back east, which is possible but far from efficient, especially because Frankfurt is in the opposite direction. Going from Berlin to, say, Warsaw, then Frankfurt, would add around 1,000 miles to DiMaggio’s journey, which seems illogical, especially as Joltin’ Joe chafed at his strenuous travel schedule.
Besides, I trust Cramer – the Pulitzer Prize winning author of a New York Times bestselling tome – in his succinct yet assured assertion that DiMaggio ‘poked into Poland…then Moscow.’ Sure, it can be foolish to hinge such grand assumptions on the merest stroke of a writer’s pen, but Cramer is one such writer – indeed, one such reporter – worthy of the honour.
Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life is much more than a sports book; it is a foundational American text that should be required reading in schools and universities. Cramer’s biography drips with exhausting detail, every word measured. His contemporaries may have played fast and loose with semantics, or been a little slapdash in chronology, but Cramer would not abide such lazy reporting, and so his words carry great meaning for me, an agog consumer of his pioneering work.
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For the record, and for anybody who may be interested in DiMaggio’s wider travels, confusion also clouds the end of his European tour. Bob Wicker of Stars and Stripes reported that, upon his visit to the Press Club in Frankfurt, DiMaggio had a flight to New York scheduled for the following morning. We do not know the exact date of that Press Club visit, but several Stars and Stripes articles place it in ‘May 1962.’ That suggests DiMaggio returned to the US by 1 June at the latest, but other reporting contradicts such an assertion.
In The Hero’s Life, for instance, Cramer says London was DiMaggio’s final leg of the European tour. “In late May, on his last stop in Europe, Joe talked to Nunnally Johnson in London,” writes Cramer, adding that DiMaggio saw newspaper headlines about Marilyn’s troubles while shooting Something’s Got to Give and headed immediately for the airport, bound to help her in Hollywood.
In further contradiction, however, on 1 June, DiMaggio sent Monroe a Western Union telegram from Madrid, Spain, wishing her a happy birthday. Even Joltin’ Joe could not be in multiple places – Frankfurt, London, New York, Los Angeles, Madrid – at once, so something clearly went awry in the reporting of his whereabouts that summer.
Indeed, on 7 June, various US newswires carried a minuscule nugget that DiMaggio ‘wrote from Europe’ saying he planned to visit east Berlin. No elaboration was offered, though, adding to the mystery. Moreover, the Associated Press said DiMaggio returned to America on 10 June. He may have made multiple trips back and forth across the Atlantic, of course, but as we have seen, deciphering DiMaggio’s exact movements is incredibly difficult.
Nevertheless, upon returning to the US, DiMaggio parted ways with Monette, who gossiped to reporters that Joltin’ Joe quit his job to spend more time with Marilyn. To that end, even after the JFK birthday debacle, DiMaggio could not quash his love for Monroe, who continued to frustrate and beguile him in equal measure. The pair met regularly throughout June and July 1962, as Joe re-joined Marilyn’s flirtatious rotation, right there alongside the Kennedy brothers, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr and others.
Gradually, Joe convinced Marilyn to make another go of their tumultuous relationship. Physical fights were not uncommon between the power couple during this period, according to Cramer, yet DiMaggio proposed once again and Monroe accepted. A date was set for their second wedding – 8 August 1962, in Marilyn’s backyard – and Monroe scheduled her final dress fitting for two days before that.
Alas, she would never make that appointment, nor would America’s quintessential sweethearts ever remarry. Marilyn died tragically in suspicious circumstances on 4 August 1962, at the desperately young age of 36. DiMaggio identified her body and had it released to Westwood Memorial Park cemetery, where she was buried on 8 August – the day they were due to exchange vows. Joe never forgave the Hollywood elites he blamed for corrupting her, and a broken heart accompanied his remaining days.
* * *
In closing, we may never know for sure when, exactly, Joe DiMaggio visited Poland. When trying to reconstruct a singular day, 62 years after it occurred, using sparse written texts, one’s entire trajectory, momentum and correctness is at the whim of previous reporting accuracies, or the lack thereof. In practice, the slightest error from Richard Ben Cramer, or contemporaneous newswire reporters, skews my hypothetical timeline and throws the entire project off-track. Hyperbole is an occupational hazard.
Searching exhaustively for primary sources, I contacted the Polish Baseball Federation, whose own historian did not know anything about DiMaggio’s visit to their homeland. Likewise, Patrycja and I failed to find mention of Joltin’ Joe touring Poland in any Polish-language news archives. Moreover, DiMaggio’s only son, Joe Jr, passed away in 1999, negating the possibility of mining family folklore. And, perhaps most sadly of all, Cramer died in 2013 and none of his copious research notes are publicly available.
Therefore, in the absence of closer connections – those who met DiMaggio in Poland or heard such bygone tales – there will always be a degree of speculation. Doubt and conjecture will always exploit the gaps, and deciding who to trust – on whose research or reminiscence to rely – will remain a subjective gauntlet.
Ultimately, when boiled down, all I had to feed off in this intriguing endeavour was a brisk semi-sentence in a 561-page book published 24 years ago: “…that spring, Monette and Joe poked into Poland, and then they went to Moscow – because Monette wanted to see it.”
As such, mere extrapolation on such a throwaway line – adding some meat to the bone of DiMaggio’s Polish jaunt – represents progress. I have triangulated a likely date and location for Joltin’ Joe’s visit – 20 May 1962, Warsaw – and I welcome contributions to refute or affirm my hypothesis.