S.F. in Rhubarb With DiMaggio Heirs

SAN FRANCISCO —  In the dim light of North Beach’s old Italian Athletic Club, Gino Cimoli chomped on a fat, unlit cigar and got ready to deal a game of cards. But first, Cimoli had to deal with this matter of Joe DiMaggio.

“His lawyer wants the Bay Bridge or the airport named after him,” fumed Cimoli, a Brooklyn Dodgers outfielder in the 1950s but a San Franciscan to the core. “His lawyer is way out of line. Joe was raised here in North Beach. He should have the playground named after him.”

Cimoli’s ire is catching these days in San Francisco. As the baseball season begins and the hometown Giants christen a sparkling new ballpark, a nasty feud has erupted over how to honor the Yankee Clipper, one of the city’s most famous sons.

Since the legendary center fielder died a year ago at the age of 84, the community has sought a suitable memorial to DiMaggio, who grew up in San Francisco and returned after his playing career ended. As first choice, the city settled on an old North Beach playground where DiMaggio honed his baseball skills in his youth.

But that proposal struck out with DiMaggio’s grandchildren and other heirs. They insist that the baseball great would have preferred that a more prestigious site bear his name, such as San Francisco International Airport or the Bay Bridge. The family’s attorney recently threatened to sue if the city pushes forward with an unauthorized memorial for Joltin’ Joe.

Mayor Willie Brown and a few other city officials are irked by the threat and say that the idea of honoring DiMaggio should be dumped. In North Beach, meanwhile, more than a few residents are baffled that a kind gesture has gone so painfully askew.

“Here’s a big city trying to do something nice, trying to offer a memorial to an icon, and it becomes a threatened lawsuit,” said Dave Craig, a former community relations official with the Giants and a longtime DiMaggio fan. “Wouldn’t it have been nice if they had just said thank you?”

But it isn’t that simple, said an attorney representing DiMaggio’s kin. Morris Engelberg of Hollywood, Fla., said the North Beach playground doesn’t represent the sort of memorial DiMaggio deserves.

Just look, he said, at what’s been done elsewhere. In New York City, site of 13 glory-filled seasons with the Yankees, DiMaggio’s name has been bestowed on a highway. In Florida, where the baseball legend spent his final years, a major hospital bears his name.

San Francisco’s proposal to name the playground or two other recreational ball fields elsewhere in the city, Engelberg said, pales in comparison.

The North Beach playground is dominated by a sprawling expanse of sun-bleached pavement, with some basketball hoops, a few tennis courts, a children’s play area and an indoor pool.

“I think it’s disgusting and an insult to Joe,” Engelberg said. “Joe would never stand for it if it was concrete. Concrete! It’s ridiculous.”

Gritty or not, that playground still echoes with talk of DiMaggio and his boyhood exploits. As a young man, locals say, he once hit a baseball from one corner all the way across to the cable car tracks, a tape-measure shot in any ballpark.

Neighborhood old-timers remember the boy and the man. Few, however, knew him well, the famously private ballplayer who led the Yankees to nine world championships and set a record that stands to this day--his astounding 56-game hitting streak in 1941.

“He deserves a lot, but maybe not an airport or bridge,” said Ben Oakes, 91. “I spent a lot of time with Joe. He was marvelous. He would have had no problem with this park.”

San Francisco isn’t the first town to have trouble trying to honor DiMaggio. Across the bay in Martinez, the ballplayer’s birthplace, community leaders have been repeatedly snubbed.

DiMaggio was a no-show for the dedication of Joe DiMaggio Drive and the Joe DiMaggio baseball fields in the 1980s and for a ceremony unveiling a waterfront monument in 1994. A year later, he didn’t respond to a plea for baseball memorabilia to help stock a city museum planned in his honor.

That sort of behavior was vintage DiMaggio, who jealously protected his name. DiMaggio would brush aside autograph hounds unless he was convinced that the ball he signed wasn’t destined for the memorabilia market. At old-timers games, DiMaggio insisted on being introduced as “baseball’s greatest living player,” a title granted him by national sportswriters in 1969.

After his death, San Francisco tried to avoid controversy over a suitable shrine. Supervisor Gavin Newsom pushed for agreement on a DiMaggio memorial, soliciting more than 1,000 suggestions.

Now the supervisor has nothing but controversy. “We asked for a response from the family, and the response was, ‘tough luck, not good enough,’ ” Newsom said.

Some of the contentiousness may spring from an unfortunate $2,600 bill the heirs received for police overtime during DiMaggio’s funeral, a private affair mobbed by well-wishers.

Whatever the motivation, the legal threat lacks merit, said Newsom, who still hopes for a compromise. But the Bay Bridge or the airport, he said, remain impossible targets in a city where “we have controversies over what to name alleyways.”

Engelberg isn’t completely shutting the door.

“It could be something else--a wing of a hospital, a Catholic school, a building downtown that has to do with health care,” Engelberg said. “It doesn’t have to be the Golden Gate Bridge.”

Over at Pat O’Shea’s Mad Hatter, a sports bar, owner Pete Nesteroke said everyone he talks to thinks any permanent tribute to DiMaggio should be in North Beach. “For him, the very quiet man he was, just a dapper man, naming the playground would seem the right thing.”

Others suggest Washington Square Park, the grassy centerpiece of North Beach.

“He didn’t live on the bridge, he didn’t live in the airport, he lived two blocks away,” said Gianni Audieri, head chef at Fior d’Italia, a North Beach restaurant frequented by DiMaggio. “I think the park would be a nice honor.”