A Bum's Game
This story was left in our comments by
Kermy B Smokeylion, via Facebook
Giuseppe DiMaggio came from Isola delle Femmine, a fishing village outside Palermo, where DiMaggios had worked the water for generations. He crossed over and kept fishing, out of San Francisco. He called baseball a bum's game. His oldest son Tom later explained it plainly: the old man wanted Joe educated and earning, out of the poverty the family had lived in. He did not think there was money in the sport.
Rosalie DiMaggio thought otherwise, and covered for the boys so they could go play.
A bum's game
What Giuseppe DiMaggio called baseball, before three of his sons played center field in the majors
Vince went first and brought home real money from the game. That changed things. By the time Joe was starring for the San Francisco Seals, Giuseppe was waking Dominic before sunrise to read him the morning paper and walk him through his brother's box score, line by line, because he could not read it himself.
Three sons. Three major league center fielders. One 56-game hitting streak that has stood for 85 years.
The man who called it a bum's game ended up learning to follow a box score in a language he did not read, through the voice of his youngest boy, in the dark.
