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He appeared on the cover of every major magazine. Songs have been written about him. The legendary writer Ernest Hemmingway referred to him as “The Great DiMaggio” in The Old Man and the Sea. I couldn’t believe that I was going to be interviewing him for three hours on QVC in March of 1992.

Many sportscasters tried throughout their careers to land an interview with Joe DiMaggio but most of them never got the chance. He was a private man and not a big fan of the media. You can imagine how thrilled I was when I was told I would be hosting a three- hour edition of Baseball Collectibles with arguably the greatest baseball player of all time.

Joe requested a meeting with me at 1pm that Sunday afternoon. The show didn’t start until 7pm that evening. I figured it would be a ten minute meeting in which he would tell me not to ask him about Marilyn Monroe or his son Joe Jr. Both of those topics were off limits and I knew it. Instead, Joe just wanted to hang out, get to know me a little bit and talk baseball. We talked baseball for almost six hours until the producer told us it was time to get in the studio.

He told me the story of his first big league game with the Yankees. The day before his debut he was on the bench when the announcer kept telling the crowd that the rookie sensation, Joe DiMaggio would be making his debut the next day. He said every time the announcement was made the crowd would applaud and Joe would become more nervous. The next day he hit two singles and a triple and lived up to all of the hype. After the game, Babe Ruth came into the locker room and told him how impressed he was with young Joe’s performance. He also described to me in detail how difficult life became during his 56 game hitting streak. As he passed George Sisler’s at 41 game streak and Wee Willie Keeler’s 44 games the pressure became almost unbearable. Then it all came to an end July 17, 1941 against the Cleveland Indians. He hit the ball hard all three times he was at bat but the Indians’ defenders made great plays and just like that the Streak was over. He told me he walked to his hotel room all the way from the ballpark to think about what it all meant. The next day he began another 16 game hitting streak. I asked him if he ever thought about “what could have been” if just one of those balls against the Indians had made it safely through the infield. He would have had a 73 game hitting streak! He told me that he learned early in his career that baseball is a lot like life. If you spend too much time looking back you miss your next turn at the plate.

After the show that night Joe and I hung out in the green room and talked for another hour. When he finally left our studios we had spend a full ten hours together. Joe was gracious to me and told me that he had thoroughly enjoyed working with me and that he was impressed with my knowledge of the game. I was so relieved to hear him say that but then he signed a few baseballs to me which I treasure to this day.

I have interviewed hundreds of Hall of Fame baseball, football, basketball and hockey players during my 40 years in broadcasting. It has been a thrill to work with them all. But to this day I consider my time with Joe DiMaggio to be the most amazing day of my career.   It was a shining moment that I will never, ever forget.