By Thomas Boswell
Washington Post Columnist
Friday, March 9, 1999; Page D1

About 15 years ago, Joe DiMaggio and a friend were leaving Cooperstown after a visit to the Hall of Fame. As they drove the back roads of upper New York state, they were deep in conversation and got lost. Finally, they hailed a fellow on a tractor to ask directions. The farmer, apparently unaware of DiMaggio's identity, leaned on the passenger door and, speaking across DiMaggio to the driver, began saying, "You go down about three miles – " Then, casually, in mid-sentence, he patted DiMaggio familiarly on the arm and said, "I see you, Joe," then finished his directions and went back to his tractor.

DiMaggio, who died yesterday at age 84, loved to tell that story. He never needed to explain it, because it was perfect. You knew he was talking about people – like both the farmer and himself – who understood the virtue of quiet dignity. Knowing who you are. Valuing yourself. Giving other people space and respect. Having a sense of values that goes beyond celebrity.

DiMaggio, if he hadn't been such a born ballplayer, might have been the farmer. And the farmer, if he could have hit the curveball, might have been DiMaggio. That's how Joe saw it. His gift was special. But he wasn't. He wanted common respect, which he seldom received, but not worship, which surrounded and haunted him for years. Nothing pleased him more than being treated like a normal person, which, in every respect except being perhaps the greatest ballplayer who ever lived, he was. Not the Great DiMaggio. Just Joe.

After more than 25 years as a kind of baseball recluse – almost never quoted, seldom seen, slightly mysterious – DiMaggio gradually returned to the edges of baseball in the late '70s and early '80s. You'd see him at old-timers games, golf tournaments, special baseball occasions or, sometimes, at Orioles games when his friend, Edward Bennett Williams, was the owner.

"It's only in the last few years that I outgrew that [reticence]," he once told me. "It has been a tremendous change for me. I finally conquered that part. . . . I find myself a lot more comfortable with people now. It gradually disappeared with the years. . . .

"For a long time [until he was almost 60], I would cringe, avoid crowds. It was not for reasons of being aloof. . . . I just didn't feel natural. People said, 'You're so relaxed on the ballfield.' I'd say, 'But I knew what I was doing.' Before a camera or a group of people, I didn't have a performance to give. So I was very, very shy. I wanted to be away from people. I thought I didn't have that much to offer, that much to say, so I used to go into my shell."

Finally, after all those years, what did he find that he had to offer?

"My gentleness," he said. "I'm one of the easiest-going guys. I'm patient with people. . . . I don't mind standing and signing. . . . I think I should be flattered. . . . Why not show up? I feel I owe something as long as they want me."

Right up until the end, everybody in baseball wanted Joe DiMaggio. He never wore out one iota of his welcome. In recent months, "How's Joe?" was a frequently asked question throughout baseball as DiMaggio battled lung cancer. Once, his old-age illnesses might have seemed to belong to some remote athletic god. But, thanks to the long thaw of his later years, the question was "How's Joe?" not "How's DiMaggio?"

Over the last 25 years, he erased all the chilly memories of the 25 that preceded it. To fans in general, he kept his dignity and mystique. But he also learned to let down his guard – halfway. Just enough so that he could live a semi-normal life. Much as he might have denied it, he didn't entirely want to stop being the Great DiMaggio. He just didn't want to be a prisoner of the role.

"I don't like to say this about myself, but I would have hit 76 home runs [instead of 46] in 1937 if I'd played in a normal park," DiMaggio once told me, without bragging, just clearing up a point. "[Announcer] Mel Allen counted all the balls I hit to the warning track. I'll admit it was discouraging. I'd hit the ball 430 where it used to be 457 feet and the guy wouldn't even have to make a sensational catch."

For the record, DiMaggio hit 27 homers on the road and 19 at home in '37. Most players – including Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa – do somewhat better at home. So, while 76 is a stretch, 60 might not be.

Baseball fans love their numbers, sometimes until the game is stultified under large piles of them. With DiMaggio, perhaps three statistics are enough to leave our jaws appropriately slack in appreciation. No, not his 56-game hitting streak. That wasn't his favorite. He prefered "nine world titles and 10 pennants in 13 seasons." If he hadn't missed his absolute prime – ages 28, 29 and 30 – in World War II, those totals would have been higher.

However, one other number might gain respect from moderns who saw McGwire strike out 155 times and Sosa 171 times in 1998. In his career, DiMaggio had 361 home runs and 369 strikeouts. That ratio may be the record which really does stand for all time. The next player on the list, Yogi Berra (358 vs. 415), is miles ahead of anybody else.

DiMaggio, growing up in the hard-working neighborhoods near Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, defined himself by his craftsmanship. To him, baseball was an honorable profession. But only if you honored the game and your talent with constant labor.

"I wasn't one of those batting cage men," DiMaggio said. "I went to the outfield every day and worked. I made a ritual of charging ground balls so I could adjust my way of straightening up to throw. . . . People say I was graceful. I was not aware of it. . . . I practiced hard. I was a complete player because I worked at it. I remember how good a fungo hitter [Yankees coach] Earle Combs was. He could put the ball just inches beyond your glove."

DiMaggio's grace continued off the field. He seldom spoke when it was unnecessary. When Polident wanted him to hawk their denture powder, he said, "Tell 'em I've still got my own teeth." When Grecian Formula offered him $250,000 – a ton of money then – he declined. He didn't tint his hair. "It isn't that I don't like money," he said, "it's just – "

He didn't explain. It's like the farmer story. If you don't get it, why should Joe waste his time explaining it to you? Personality lives in silence. If you have one, you don't like to invade its privacy.

Few men in sports have ever had such an acute, innate sense of what was appropriate to the moment – on the field or off it. A year after he retired, DiMaggio went to one game in St. Louis and "stood way out in left field on a hill. Nobody saw me," he said. In just a short time, he realized that retirement would be as natural to him as playing. "My injuries were there. They were just too much. I knew my body.

"I understood myself."

Few do. Millions sensed he did and respected him for it even as they deeply wished that, by watching him, they might learn a bit of the knack themselves.