My Life in Baseball...

Joe DiMaggio and Dorothy Arnold

By Jim Heffernan

 October 1939 – I am born. A month later Joe DiMaggio, “The Yankee Clipper,” marries Duluth native Dorothy Arnold, who was Dorothy Olson when she grew up here, but took a stage name when she went to Hollywood, where they met. I know nothing about this at the time because I am one month old.

Baseball season 1941 – Joe DiMaggio has a 56-game hitting streak, but at age 2 I know nothing about it. Also that year, in an event considered by many to be of lesser interest, the United States enters World War II, but I know nothing about that either.

Spring-summer 1949 – I make my debut as an outfielder and at-bat strike out king at a neighborhood playground. Memorable moment: I am in left field with my brother’s old leather glove on the wrong hand (I am left handed, he is not) and wonder, what am I doing here? A neighborhood group of friends plays some form of baseball just about every day in summer. I hate it, but go along.

Around that same time – My father takes me to a few Duluth Dukes Northern League games at Wade Stadium and admonishes me for not watching the action on the field, but rather eyeing hot dog vendors. I am given a Dukes sweatshirt, which I wear, but with no commitment.

Entrance to Wriggly Field, Chicago

June 1951 – On a visit to Chicago to see relatives, I attend my first (and almost only in life) major league baseball game between the Chicago Cubs and Boston Braves (later Milwaukee Braves and after that Atlanta Braves), sitting in the 60-cent bleachers, admiring the vines along the fence at Wrigley Field but not paying much attention to the game. Like the outcome.

The year 1954 – I notice that Joe DiMaggio marries Movie star Marilyn Monroe who sang

Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe

“Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” She wasn’t singing about baseball diamonds. They divorce nine months later, possibly when Joe found out.

Rest of 1950s -- I ignore all baseball except in movies like “The Babe Ruth Story” and “Kill the Umpire” both starring character actor William Bendix who looks nothing like Babe Ruth.

Entire 1960s – I begin a journalism career and am required to “help out” the sports desk on busy nights, shocking the sports editor with my lack of knowledge of baseball (and other sports except ping pong).

Late in the 1970s – After work I play “catch” with my young son, who takes to baseball like a duck takes to water (and I take to clichés) and becomes involved in Little League. I am forced to watch entire games because I am chauffer.

Sometime in 1984 – I view the Robert Redford baseball movie “The Natural” and love it. When discussing it with co-workers on the newspaper sports desk I learn that true baseball lovers hate the movie, which explains a lot.

Around that same decade – I accompany my son to a couple of Minnesota Twins games at the old Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, one of which goes a monotonous 12 innings. I notice a romantic couple in the stands. He kisses her on the strikes.

Jump to October-November 2016 -- The Chicago Cubs win their first World Series since more than 20 years before I was born, defeating the Cleveland Indians. I do not watch on television. I know nothing about the teams, like why the Indians are demonstrating against pipeline construction in North Dakota. 

Forgotten Duluthians well remembered...

By Jim Heffernan

I stumbled by happenstance across a book published last year, “Forgotten Duluthians,” that triggered a lot of memories. The book is by David Ouse who runs the reference department at the Duluth Public Library, so it’s pretty well researched.

Somehow “Forgotten Duluthians” came out in 2010 without reaching my radar screen. But it’s just as good a read in 2011, and will be on into the future, forever clearing up myths about some past Duluthians, and introducing some of today’s readers to past residents of the Zenith City they didn’t know about who went on to make something of themselves while leading fascinating lives.

I’d heard of the majority of the subjects, both famous – Lorenzo Music, the voice of the Garfield cartoons, was pretty well known – and not so well known today. One of these was Sidney Buchman, a Hollywood producer whom I recall hearing about when I was a child, but haven’t thought of since.

Buchman was born here in 1901, was graduated from Central High School and ended up in Hollywood in the early 1930s, starting out as a writer for Paramount studios, later becoming a producer. He died in 1975.

What jogged my memory about him was his involvement in the production of the movie “Jolson Sings Again,” a sequel to “The Jolson Story” that had come out a couple of years before. These hagiographical biopics told an idealized version of the life of singer Al Jolson, a performer nearly forgotten today but who was a huge Broadway star in his prime in the 1920s and 1930s. He performed in blackface, singing songs like “Mammy” and “Sonny Boy,” anathema for any artist today. Jolson is credited with being the star of the first sound movie, “The Jazz Singer,” in 1927.

Reading about Buchman, I recalled a scene in “Jolson Sings Again,” which I saw with my parents when I was about 10, in which Jolson, portrayed by actor Larry Parks, chats with Buchman, the producer of the movie, about Jolson’s memory of performing in Duluth at “the old Lyceum Theater.”

At the time, Duluth was abuzz with this scene, and, according to “Forgotten Duluthians,” producer Buchman was honored with “Sidney Buchman Day” in 1950. He made several appearances here, including at Central High School, still at the downtown site.

This is just one of 39 brief profiles making up Ouse’s book, each one fascinating in its own way. Yes, Dorothy Olson is in there. She had a brief screen career as Dorothy Arnold but is best known as the first wife of Joe DiMaggio and the mother of his only son. Hers is another story, though, best read in this interesting book, only available for sale through the Duluth Public Library with proceeds going to the library.

For information about how to purchase this book, Forgotten Duluthians, click HERE at the Duluth Public Library gift shop web site for the book. 

Turkey day: Time to flip that bird into the oven...

By Jim Heffernan

On Thanksgiving eve, as we were preparing to gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing the next day, I was intrigued by some of the contents of the Duluth daily newspaper.

Some ads got my attention first. Several large and well-known department stores would be open for business on Thanksgiving Day, they proclaimed.

You wonder if the Lord is blessing that move, although, whether the churches like it or not, Thanksgiving is a civil holiday, set by law. It is not in the Constitution itself, though, much to the chagrin of Tea Party partiers, you’d think. It’s founding fathers, not founding feathers.

But onward. One of the stores in the ad inserts that caught my attention advertised as a suggested Christmas gift a home brewing kit called “Mr. Beer.”

Mr. Beer. For Christmas. Under the tree. I was brought up in a more or less non- or anti-drinking (the anti- being observed more religiously than the non- in some cases) home and church environment in which even talk of drinking alcohol was pretty much taboo.

Now in 2010 we might find Mr. Beer under the Christmas tree? We should have seen this coming, Mr. Coffee having made such inroads, outlasting even Joe DiMaggio, who used to hawk the Mr. Coffee machines after his baseball and Marilyn Monroe careers. Who might be a good spokesperson for Mr. Beer? Send nominations to Milwaukee.

I hope I don’t receive a Mr. Beer set for Christmas. Maybe Mr. Vodka, but not Mr. Beer, thank you very much.

Setting aside the ad inserts, I found the potpourri of the day’s news on Page 2 most interesting. In keeping with recent trends (the past 2,000 years or so, give or take a millennium) the news was not good in this collection of snippets from the wires of the Associated Press and other sources. Some of it was appalling, but there it was, and I noticed.

Under the headline “Man found guilty of torturing teeen” (are teenagers getting so powerful they get three e’s now?), a guy in San Francisco was found guilty of the following charges: aggravated mayhem, torture, kidnapping and false imprisonment. You’d think just plain mayhem would do, but aggravated mayhem? Boy, this is one bad dude. Then on top of that “false” imprisonment? If he imprisoned the teeen, wouldn’t it have been “true” imprisonment? Inquiring minds do not want to know. This was enough.

Then, on the same page, a few headlines away, appeared this one: “Priest accused of trying to hire hit man.” Yes, a priest in Texas allegedly hired a hit man to erase (my word) a teenager who accused him of sexual abuse. Well, there’s a new low. At least aggravated mayhem didn’t involve erasing anybody. For the record, the priest was caught before the hit occurred.

It happened in what was described as, and I quote, “the West Texas community of Rock Springs, a rural enclave known for sheep and goat herding.” Now, I ask, why bring innocent sheep and goats into this priest abuse story? You wonder.

As an aside, I had thought that America had gone beyond sheep and goat herding. Afghanistan, yes. But Texas? Maybe we should let the state secede from the Union after all, as its Gov. Rick Perry, R-Mars, has suggested.

Finally, still on Page 2, we learned that young Bristol Palin – described as a 20-year-old single mom but we all know who HER mom is -- was finally eliminated from “Dancing With the Stars.” Said Bristol before the outcome: “Going out there and winning this would mean a lot. It would be like a big middle finger to all the people out there that hate my mom and hate me.”

I don’t know about you, but I was brought up in a home and church environment where even talk of raising a big middle finger to people was largely taboo.

But enough. We’d better get to flipping our bird into the oven. Twenty pounds this year. Weighs more than our late dog.

Happy Thanksgiving…in spite of it all.