Dimaggio Takes A Hit Longtime Attorney Slams Baseball Great In Vanity Fair

The attorney Joe DiMaggio trusted to protect his privacy and dignity portrays him in a Vanity Fair article as a penny-pinching loner who discarded friends and relatives like used tissues.

Morris Engelberg, the Florida lawyer who was DiMaggio’s closest friend and business adviser during the last 16 years of his life, describes himself as a sycophant who turned his back on his own family and life to serve the baseball player he adored while growing up in Brooklyn.

“I was obsessed,” Engelberg told the Daily News on Monday. “I was sick. I loved him. I still love him.”

The article in the September issue of the magazine reports that DiMaggio’s final words were, “I’ll finally get to see Marilyn,” referring to his second wife, Marilyn Monroe. But that sounds too scripted for Javier Rebe, the Hospice of Broward County nurse who was at DiMaggio’s home when he died. Rebe said the Hall of Famer did not say anything before he died.

Engelberg, who helped the Yankee Clipper make a fortune in the memorabilia business, told the magazine he never charged DiMaggio a cent, although he is paid as the estate’s executor and attempted to sell dozens of DiMaggio-autographed items at an April auction.

Engelberg has also engaged in ugly spats over plans to name public facilities in San Francisco, Hollywood, Fla., and New York after the Yankee great, facilities Engelberg believes are not worthy of the DiMaggio name.

But some baseball observers may find it odd that Engelberg is the primary source for a lengthy article that says DiMaggio chose friends for what he could get from them - free places to stay on the road, free meals, free soap, free ice cream. He said DiMaggio spent about $10,000 a year and always expected others to pay his way.

“He was a competitive guy,” Engelberg said. “He loved winning. After he retired, this was the only way he could keep score.”