Dom Dimaggio

On that May night at Vittorio's, however, Dom is ready to talk about Marilyn, for reasons he does not know himself. His dinner guest makes a reference to "Joe's second wife." Then Dom says the name: "When it was first announced that Joe and Marilyn were getting married"—to hear the name Marilyn spoken, not as an icon or a reference in an Elton John song but in connection to a real person, is startling—"I hoped for the best. But I thought, I give them a year. I was wrong. The marriage lasted nine months.

"She was a nice-looking person, but I didn't approve of her thinking," Dom says. "Her career was first. Joe could not condone the things that Marilyn had to do. Joe wanted a wife he could raise children with. She could not do that. When they separated, I wrote to them that it was important for them to stay together, to try to make it work, that the whole world looked upon their marriage as the ideal. I know Marilyn accepted the letter and read it to Joe, but it did not help. Joe had wanted that relationship to work. He held on to it for the rest of his life. At his funeral my daughter said, 'My uncle was a lonesome hero.' She hit it right on the button."

Dom has things in life that Joe only dreamed about. For starters, he got marriage right the first time. He and the former Emily Frederick have been married for 52 years. They have three children, Paul, Emily and Peter. They all went to college—Brown, Stanford and New Hampshire, respectively—and all three finished. (Joe Jr. attended Yale, but dropped out.) The three children have all gone on to find their way in the world. There's also Dom's thriving business career. He was very successful in textile manufacturing, a pursuit in which his surname was of no value. Today Paul runs the business, Delaware Valley Corp., in Lawrence, Mass. It has about 50 employees and annual revenues of $12 million. Dom and Emily have six grandchildren, and there are trust funds to pay for their college educations. "I've led a tremendously fulfilling life," Dom says.

He then says: "Sometimes Teddy will say to me, 'Dommie, I haven't done much with my life.' He feels he should have achieved more after his playing days were over. Financially. Other ways, too. I say to him, 'Teddy, you have done more than 99.9 percent of the corporate CEOs in this country. When you played, you were crucified by the writers, but you stood your ground. You served your country in war not once but twice. You almost gave up your life for your country. If anyone ever suggests otherwise, you spit that person right in the eye. You are your own man. You always have been.' I hope to God the doctors aren't just keeping Teddy alive. I saw that with Joe. He went though hell. It's no way to end a life. Teddy deserves better than that."

DiMaggio takes a sip of his drink, opens his menu and says, "All the old-timers are fading out." The words do not sound sad. A waitress appears, right on cue, and Dom orders dinner. The food is Italian, and the atmosphere is proper Old World. For whatever reason, and who can say about such things, he looks like the picture of contentment.