Joe DiGangi showing off his 'fastball fingers' in December 2005. Photo by Max Rottenstein
Joe DiGangi with his wife Connie at an amatuer baseball game in Coronado, CA in March 2006. Photo by Max Rottenstein.
Joe D DiGangi, saying farewell to an unsung American hero
September 16, 2009 by Max Rottenstein
I was spending some time in Coronado across the bay from San Diego last month and some sad news was just delivered to me while I was there: Joe DiGangi had died a week before I arrived. You probably don't know him, I interviewed him for a photo project several years ago. He wasn't a man of fame or wealth but in a sense he was a truer hero, he was the stuff that the American dream was made of.
Joe was born in Greenpoint, Brooklyn in 1914 to meager surroundings. At 17 years of age, he was a bullpen catcher for the New York Yankees from 1933 to 1942. How he got the job is a story within itself. Picture a teenager showing up a ball club's front office, going up to the club manager and saying, "hey I'm ready to play for your team!". That's what Joe did with the Yankees.
Joe left for Yankees spring training in Florida, taking a change of clothes, $20, a catcher's mitt, and holding onto a verbal promise of a tryout. Can you imagine their surprise? Not only did he get his try out, he was invited to join the team. If you look at the team photo of the 1933 Yankees, sure you see Babe Ruth but you'll also see a proud blond-haired teenager sitting in the front row, that was Joe DiGangi.
He was there when Lou Gehrig was delivering his famous "luckiest man on the face of the earth" speech on July 4, 1939. In one of the accompanying photos you can see Joe's enchanting smile as well as his "fastball fingers", although one of those fingers was broken by Gehrig during a batting practice. According to the Coronado Eagle & Journal he helped Joe DiMaggio during his legendary 56-game hitting streak in 1941 by pitching to him for an additional two hours a day.
In 1942 Joe shipped off to the South Pacific to be part of the Navy's construction battalions known as the Seabees. While in the service he also played baseball for the entertainment of the troops once again teaming up with his old friend, the other Joe D.
After serving his country and with his baseball career behind him, Joe returned home to apply the skills he learned in the service, living that great American dream that was abound in the post-war period, managing a franchise of a company that built prefabricated homes in New England before retiring to Coronado. Joe is survived by his wife Connie, who he affectionately called "Mom", they were married for 71 years together raised a son and a daughter. He was in good health all the way up until the time preceding his passing, Joe wouldn't have had it any other way.
I think what I will miss almost as much as Joe DiGangi is what I felt he stood for: that traditional American work ethic. The work ethic that Joe represented was so different than what dominates the headlines about American business, a world of quick bucks, minimum required effort, meeting numbers on balance sheets to make a bonus, and worst of all, bailouts In the bygone world that Joe came from, that he helped to build, all of these concepts were alien.
I wish I had gotten a chance to talk to Joe about the state of our nation today and into the future. I think he might have had some good ideas as to what we need to do as a country to prosper after this recession. As a Seabee, when the the regular military had a glut of Japanese POWs, instead of having them sit about he put them to work doing construction. I'm not sure if that was up to the Geneva Convention, but it was a damned efficient idea.
Joe is gone now, I know we won't get him back. Joe was a special person, once you met him, he always lived in your heart. I hope that Joe's spirit stays alive enough so that the ethics and values he represented has not totally gone from our great land, because we need them now more then ever. But I'll try not to think about that too much.
As always, I'll do my best to stay positive and every time I see a gentleman wearing a white derby hat, I'll think about Joe J DiGangi, a great guy who loved people and lived the the American dream.
Joe was born in Greenpoint, Brooklyn in 1914 to meager surroundings. At 17 years of age, he was a bullpen catcher for the New York Yankees from 1933 to 1942. How he got the job is a story within itself. Picture a teenager showing up a ball club's front office, going up to the club manager and saying, "hey I'm ready to play for your team!". That's what Joe did with the Yankees.
Joe left for Yankees spring training in Florida, taking a change of clothes, $20, a catcher's mitt, and holding onto a verbal promise of a tryout. Can you imagine their surprise? Not only did he get his try out, he was invited to join the team. If you look at the team photo of the 1933 Yankees, sure you see Babe Ruth but you'll also see a proud blond-haired teenager sitting in the front row, that was Joe DiGangi.
He was there when Lou Gehrig was delivering his famous "luckiest man on the face of the earth" speech on July 4, 1939. In one of the accompanying photos you can see Joe's enchanting smile as well as his "fastball fingers", although one of those fingers was broken by Gehrig during a batting practice. According to the Coronado Eagle & Journal he helped Joe DiMaggio during his legendary 56-game hitting streak in 1941 by pitching to him for an additional two hours a day.
In 1942 Joe shipped off to the South Pacific to be part of the Navy's construction battalions known as the Seabees. While in the service he also played baseball for the entertainment of the troops once again teaming up with his old friend, the other Joe D.
After serving his country and with his baseball career behind him, Joe returned home to apply the skills he learned in the service, living that great American dream that was abound in the post-war period, managing a franchise of a company that built prefabricated homes in New England before retiring to Coronado. Joe is survived by his wife Connie, who he affectionately called "Mom", they were married for 71 years together raised a son and a daughter. He was in good health all the way up until the time preceding his passing, Joe wouldn't have had it any other way.
I think what I will miss almost as much as Joe DiGangi is what I felt he stood for: that traditional American work ethic. The work ethic that Joe represented was so different than what dominates the headlines about American business, a world of quick bucks, minimum required effort, meeting numbers on balance sheets to make a bonus, and worst of all, bailouts In the bygone world that Joe came from, that he helped to build, all of these concepts were alien.
I wish I had gotten a chance to talk to Joe about the state of our nation today and into the future. I think he might have had some good ideas as to what we need to do as a country to prosper after this recession. As a Seabee, when the the regular military had a glut of Japanese POWs, instead of having them sit about he put them to work doing construction. I'm not sure if that was up to the Geneva Convention, but it was a damned efficient idea.
Joe is gone now, I know we won't get him back. Joe was a special person, once you met him, he always lived in your heart. I hope that Joe's spirit stays alive enough so that the ethics and values he represented has not totally gone from our great land, because we need them now more then ever. But I'll try not to think about that too much.
As always, I'll do my best to stay positive and every time I see a gentleman wearing a white derby hat, I'll think about Joe J DiGangi, a great guy who loved people and lived the the American dream.