-
I just found this little tidbit:
Joe DiMaggio
Simon, who was a baseball fan (and a New York Yankees fan, in particular), loved Mickey Mantle. When asked on The Dick Cavett Show why, then, did he not cite Mantle over DiMaggio he retorted, “It’s about syllables, Dick. It’s about how many beats there are.”
Simon reportedly later met DiMaggio at a restaurant in New York City in the 1970s and the slugger immediately asked Simon, “What I don’t understand is why you ask where I’ve gone. I just did a Mr. Coffee commercial, I’m a spokesman for Bowery Savings Bank and I haven’t gone anywhere!”
Apparently, DiMaggio wasn’t up for poetic license.
Simon later said of the encounter, “I didn’t mean the lines literally, that I thought of him as an American hero and that genuine heroes were in short supply. He accepted the explanation and thanked me. We shook hands and said good night.”