Dom DiMaggio - brother of the more famous

THE original lyrics are in Latin, but Lauriger Horatius originated as a German drinking song popular with the university beer hall set, and the tune has been widely adapted for songs representing a wide political spectrum: it is the basis for the Marxist anthem The Red Flag, and a German carol, Oh Tannenbaum, which gained currency during the Nazi era because Hitler liked the idea of a holiday song devoid of specific religious references.

Two days hence in Baltimore, as the horses parade on to the track for the 134th running of the Preakness Stakes, Lauriger Horatius will once again be revived, this time as Maryland My Maryland, a civil war-era song whose lyrics describe Abraham Lincoln as a “tyrant”.

But I’ve found that tune running through my head for the past several days in an entirely different connection. I’ve been thinking back to an evening in a hotel bar in Winter Haven, Florida, in March of 1976. I was drinking with several sportswriter and sportscaster friends. Across the room was a table full of those elderly Red Sox fans who flock south each spring, brimming with optimism, to watch their beloved team taking shape for the new year over the leisurely pace of a month’s worth of exhibition games.

This would have predated the Karaoke era by at least a decade, but as the house band reached the end of its first set, one of the old-timers walked over and whispered to the keyboard player, who nodded and, striking up the chords to Lauriger Horatius, provided the accompaniment while the elderly fan, in an earnest and perfectly-pitched tenor, turned the baseball-specific lyrics into an aria, building to a crescendo and reaching the high notes in its concluding couplet: “He’s better than his brother Joe! Dom-i-nic DiMaggio!”

The place erupted in applause. At our table, the late Tony Conigliaro, who had only recently retired to become a television sportscaster, rushed out to phone his cameraman and summon him to the bar.

At the band’s next break the song was repeated and wound up as part of Tony’s spring training report for his Providence television station.

I wish I’d written down all the words that night. This also predated the age of Google, and while there were numerous references to the above-cited punchline in accounts of Dom DiMaggio’s death, at 92, last Friday, I’ve scoured the internet for the complete lyrics, without success. Since the singer would be at least 115 by now, the only copy of the song may lie in a Betamax archive at WJAR in Rhode Island – and then only if someone had the foresight not to tape over Tony’s piece.

Dom DiMaggio would have been the first to tell you that he was not “better than his brother Joe”, but the affection in which “the Little Professor” (the sobriquet came because he was one of the first Major Leaguers to wear spectacles into battle) was held by Boston fans is evident, and that he was the perfect complement to the cast surrounding him was wonderfully illustrated in David Halberstam’s 2003 book The Teammates, an account of the annual get-togethers of DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr and Johnny Pesky, all then in their 80s, still sharing a bond forged on the field of play over half a century earlier.

The number of brother combinations who have played Major League is relatively small, but over the years the Boston Red Sox have employed several players from that sampling, and have evinced an almost unerring facility for winding up with the wrong brother.

A certain future Hall of Famer, Greg Maddux won 365 games, mostly with the Braves and Cubs. He won four straight Cy Young awards as the National League’s best pitcher, and, almost unthinkably for his day and age, pitched 109 complete games and recorded 35 shutouts. Brother Mike pitched for 15 years and went 39-37 with two complete games and one shutout, neither of which was accomplished during his two seasons with the Red Sox. His principal legacy to the New England sports scene seems to have been that, when he left town for Seattle in 1997, he took the wife of a Boston TV producer with him.

A first-ballot Hall of Famer, George Brett led the league in batting three times and played on 14 All Star teams in a career spent entirely with the Kansas City Royals. The Red Sox were the first of 10 teams for whom his older brother, Ken, pitched. Ken won 83 games in 14 years, but only 10 in Boston.

Second baseman Steve Sax made five All Star teams as a member of the Dodgers. Dave Sax, a catcher, made none, either with the Dodgers or in his tenure with the Red Sox.

At first blush you’d have to say Boston got the short end of the stick when it came to the DiMaggio brothers, too, even if you threw in older brother Vince, who played for the crosstown Braves during the same era.

Most of Dominic’s numbers pale in comparison to Joltin’ Joe’s. Joe was a .323 lifetime hitter, while Dom’s average was a respectable .301. Joe hit 361 home runs and drove in 1,537; Dom’s totals were 87 and 618. Dominic was unquestionably the better defensive player, and a better baserunner.

He was also, as Halberstam’s book so wonderfully showed, held in universal affection by his teammates, which was not always the case with Joe, and that ought to count for something. Moreover, Dom was a far happier human being, even though he was ravaged by Paget’s disease for two decades.

Joe was an intensely private person, despite marriages to high-profile actresses Dorothy Arnold and Marilyn Monroe, both of which ended in divorce; Dominic was happily married to Emily for 61 years.

Joe’s suspicious nature sometimes even extended to his family. He and Dominic endured a frosty spell in which they rarely spoke. But I can recall being in San Francisco when the great earthquake of 1989 disrupted the World Series. The following morning those of us covering for the Boston Herald received an urgent message from the office.

Dominic, hearing that some parts of the Marina District had been severely hit, wanted us to check in on Joe, who had a home there, to make sure he was all right. As it turned out, Joe’s house was so badly damaged that it was quarantined, but its owner fortunately hadn’t been at home when the earthquake struck.

Joe DiMaggio is, of course, referenced everywhere from Paul Simon’s Mrs Robinson to the pages of Hemingway’s The Old Man and The Sea, and even the third brother has his name on a book – Edward Kiersh’s Where Have You Gone, Vince DiMaggio?

But Dom had his song, too.

And as I watch Saturday’s post parade from Pimlico, I intend to sing along, drowning out the lyrics to the rebel anthem with a hearty rendition of what I can recall of “He’s better than his brother Joe . . .”