Spotlight on the Charles Conlon Baseball Collection: The Classic Joe DiMaggio Portrait

 

Joe DiMaggio Photo Gallery

Click on any image to see entire gallery:

Spotlight on the Charles Conlon Baseball Collection

While taking my weekly look through the Charles Conlon baseball collection searching for photos of Joe DiMaggio, I came across this real beauty. It’s a Conlon speciality: a portrait photo of a baseball superstar. Here’s the interesting caption accompanying this photo of Joe DiMaggio from “The Big Show – Charles M. Conlon’s Golden Age Baseball Photographs”:

“With three days left in the 1932 season, shortstop Augie Galan of the San Francisco Seals asked his manager, former major league shortstop Ike Caveney, for permission to go on a trip to Hawaii. Permission was denied because Galan’s absence would leave the team one infielder short – until Seal’s outfielder Vince DiMaggio resolved the dilemma: ‘What’s the matter with my brother Joe? He’s a shortstop and a good one.’ Joe wasn’t much of a shortstop, but he hit a triple in his first professional at-bat, and in 1933 he batted safely in 61 consecutive Pacific Coast League games. Joe became a starting outfielder for the Seals, making his big brother expendable, and Vince was soon playing for the Hollywood Stars. Joe went on to become an American sports hero, a strange and lonely legend who eventually amassed a fortune through product endorsements and personal appearances, but by the 1970s, while the Yankee Clipper was selling Mr. Coffee on television, his brother Vince was selling Fuller Brushes door-to-door. “

I also stumbled upon a nice collection of 23 rarely-seen photos of DiMaggio from the Sporting News archive. I posted a couple of the good ones in the comments section. To see the entire collection, just click on the link below. I think you’ll enjoy it:

http://www.sportingnews.com/photos/4624925-rare-photos-of-joe-dimaggio-new-york-yankees-baseball/slide/279879

 

-Gary Livacari

 

Photo Credits: “The Big Show – Charles M. Conlon’s Golden Age Baseball Photographs”; and the Sporting News archives: http://www.sportingnews.com/photos/4624925-rare-photos-of-joe-dimaggio-new-york-yankees-baseball/slide/279879
Information: Quote taken from the Conlon book mentioned above.