It's a lesson this sport can't get enough of. When DiMaggio ended his career 47 years ago, baseball was in great shape. It was the game on everybody's lips and radios, the one that grown-ups planned weekends around and kids skipped school for. In those days the World Series was a religious festival, not a commercial opportunity, and baseball stars loomed so large that some of them needed two nicknames. A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
Nobody asks that of modern players, because everybody knows where they've gone.
To the bank, silly. You tend to doubt that the nation will ever turn its eyes to Mike Piazza or Albert Belle for anything. Least of all a loan. DiMaggio did hold out once. Some of us are too young to have seen DiMaggio play.