Auction set for DiMaggio's diaries

0 Comments | USA TODAY, July, 2007 | by Ernie Palladino

NEW YORK -- Whitey Ford looked at the stack of 29 binders in amazement, hardly believing Joe DiMaggio ever would have produced the 2,400 pages of diary entries that filled them.

"I'm shocked," the New York Yankees pitching legend and longtime friend of DiMaggio said Monday at a news conference announcing Steiner Sports' acquisition of DiMaggio's diaries, which are to be sold at auction. "I couldn't get an autograph off him."

Many people were in the same boat as Ford between 1982 and 1993, when DiMaggio compiled the daily notes on anything from airplane receipts to hotel letterhead. DiMaggio started the diaries as a way of tracking his expenses, right down to tips. But observations of various meetings, events, and opinions eventually worked their way into the...