I’m not a big baseball fan. I’m not even a Boston Red Sox fan. But I knew of Dom DiMaggio. Not because he played outfield for the Sox, or that his brother was Joe, or that ironically his brother is the one who broke his hitting streak. I knew of him because of the story my husband told me about how he met Dom DiMaggio.

When my husband was 14 his father kept him out of school one day and told him he was going to take him to meet Dom DiMaggio. This was in 1978 or 1979. My husband’s father was a salesman, although at this point in time, I’m not quite sure what kind of job he had. Anyway, he was going to see Dom DiMaggio because he had done some job or project for him. I’m not quite sure and neither is my husband.  But he had some business with Dom.

My father-in-law introduced my husband to Dom by saying, “This is Dom DiMaggio, Joe’s brother”. My husband recalls shaking his hand and remembers Dom said “hello” to him, but that’s about it.

So naturally when my husband told me this morning that Dom DiMaggio died, I said to him, “The same one you met when you were 14?”

“The very same one.”

The thing is, the number of times my husband told me the Dom story, he never ONCE mentioned to me that Dom had played for the Sox. I just figured his claim to fame was being Joe’s brother!

How ironic is it that one DiMaggio would play for the Sox and the other for the Yankees? Weird…