Heroes by Joe MarmaudThis is a featured page


(as read at "When Writing Teachers Write VI" - October 17, 2007)

I wrote and revised my first reading as a tale of perceptions, of fathers and sons, and of heroes. In an age and a world of the sports anti-hero, the disappearing father, and the cynical disbelief in the good, it seems appropriate to share it with you.

I once took a course in psychology as an undergraduate in which the professor compared the relationship between the father and the son to that of the characters to the wizard in the Wizard of Oz. At first dad seems mysterious, all-knowing, powerful, the professor opined. Then when the curtain is drawn away metaphorically, around the teen age years, the wizard-father, in a false epiphany, becomes a fraud and a sham. Finally with age and insight, father becomes like the person behind the curtain, just a good man. But oh what an evocation is that word just, here meaning not merely but justly, righteously and so perhaps and I say perhaps ironically so too with heroes.

It seems that we acquire our heroes and our perceptions of them in a similar way when young, and as we grow older these heroes are not what they once appeared to be. Perhaps though just a small trace of who, in our hearts, we thought of as wizard heroes remains with us as recollected residue of a dusty but precious past memory and is once again made a part of us and we are the better for it.

As anyone who knows me might tell you I love the game of baseball. It is a passion of over fifty years going back to the boys of summer in my native Brooklyn, (I actually saw Jackie play his last year with the Dodgers!) to summers at Fenway, where I saw Willams to Yaz and of course Yankee Stadium. I love my wife, my children, grandchild, my career and friends, God, country and the Boston Red Sox not necessarily in that order as my long suffering wife would say, hopefully with a smile and a sigh.

Well, heroes, and one in particular are the subject of this anecdote, and I want to use it to illustrate what I mean.

My younger son James, in complete contrast and contradiction to family tradition, is a New York Yankee fan. I am not nor is my older son Joseph although my adored daughter Jessica has joined the revolution and sided with the enemy. It makes for a fun family situation except for my wife Deb, who is caught in the middle and really only cares for individual ballplayers and peace in the family.

Now James has always listened carefully to the stories that his grandfather, my father told him about the lore of the game and somehow Joe DiMaggio became his hero. He never saw him play, heck I never did, except in old grainy movie reels, but we acquire our heroes in magical, mysterious ways and so it was with James.

Flash to Cooperstown, NY in 1991 on hall of fame weekend, the busiest time of the year for this beautiful little village which has housed the myth of baseball’s beginnings since forever in its charming and ever expanding museum and hall, which are tributes to the church of baseball.

So popular an attraction an attraction on this weekend, we had to make arrangements for lodging in Oneonta, a town a fair drive down the road from Cooperstown.

As we made our way to Sunday morning mass at a local church, I informed the kids of the Irish tradition of making wishes upon entering a church for the first time. And so they wished. afterwards I asked James about his wishes, and, of course, the wish was to meet the Yankee clipper. My heart sank. Mr. DiMaggio rarely attended the festivities of the day anymore and I could only hope that the autographs James had collected so far, Brooks Robinson, Billy Williams and the rest would suffice, but I knew they really wouldn’t. As we approached the golf course where most of the hall of famers spent their mornings, my spirit was not brightened by the fine mist falling on the greens. Surely the weather mirrored my thoughts. We were not there more than ten minutes when a small miracle occurred and a father’s silent prayer was answered. In a surreal moment a park ranger came over to the group and announced, rather proclaimed that Joe DiMaggio was finishing his round of golf and would make himself available for autographs for a limited time if people behaved, would stand in line, and not , repeat not be offensive to the man.

Naturally James was the first in line with bright eyes and pen and autograph book at the ready. His brother Joseph, not as equally thrilled but excited nonetheless was right by his side and a bewildered but grateful and tongue-tied dad behind. When the great ballplayer stepped over to James, he jokingly told him that he knew this autograph was really for his old man and that he doubted that James even knew who he was. Having found what was left of my tongue I managed to stammer out that James was actually his biggest fan and so he graciously personalized the signature to James from Joe DiMaggio. I blurted out that Joseph, next in line, was a Red Sox fan and another voice in the group suggested DiMaggio personalize his autograph as well. Joe eyed Joseph and commented mischievously he would have to get Ted Williams to do that and then he signed my son’s book as well.

That day was both definitive and significant to James. He met his hero and for a brief moment he was the Wizard of Oz as he will remember him forever. And so now my son is twenty-four, and no amount of misconceptions and iconoclastic historical rewrites in the attempt to demythologize DiMaggio can take that away. Try to tell James about men and heroes and what they mean. About fathers and sons and ideas and image. There are no words.


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