Maggio

On August 13, 2003, LILLIE MAEMAGGIO (nee Norton), beloved wife of John J. Maggio; loving mother of Louise Linderman, Peggy Kramer, Robert and Jimmie Lee Bates, and the late Dorothy Hamilton. Also survived by many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Friends may call at the family owned David J. Weber Funeral Homes P.A., 401 S. Chester Street, on Saturday and Sunday from 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M. Funeral service will take place at the funeral home on Monday at 11 A.M. Interment Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery.

On March 2, 2003 BERNARD J. RONUCKEO, 46, died suddenly at his home. He is survived by his long-time companion Donna Hudok, husband of Theresa Ronuckeo, daughter Autumn, his mother Loretta E. Ronuckeo-Maggio and her husband Salvatore Maggio, sisters Antoinette Wells, Donna Thomas, Grace M. Budacz of Boulder, CO and Maria Bauer of Richmond, VA, son of the late Bernard V. Ronuckeo. Bernie was raised in the Eastwood Section of Baltimore County and attend Our Lady of Fatima School. He lived in the greater Dundalk area and enjoyed following the home town major league teams.

Joseph A. Maggio, 84, co-owner of produce firm Joseph A. Maggio, former co-owner of a produce business that had been located in the old Camden Market, died Monday of respiratory failure at his Catonsville home. He was 84. Born and raised in West Baltimore by immigrant parents from Italy, he was a graduate of Polytechnic Institute. He served in an Army artillery unit in the Pacific during World War II, then returned to Baltimore and took over the operation of the Maggio & Sons produce business with his two brothers.

"Joe DiMaggio, The Hero's Life," by Richard Ben Cramer. Simon & Schuster. 560 pages. $28. In 6,821 at bats in 13 years as a New York Yankee, Joe DiMaggio hit 361 home runs and struck out only 369 times, an awesome achievement recited repeatedly by knowledgeable baseball fans as the ultimate proof of his greatness. In his 84 years at the game of real life, DiMaggio hit few home runs and struck out countless times, a tragedy covered up for years by the DiMaggio Myth Machine. That's the core of Richard Ben Cramer's gripping character study, "Joe DiMaggio, The Hero's Life."

CHESTERTOWN - Here on the Eastern Shore, of all places, a different Joe DiMaggio has taken shape. He emerged from a small wooden house in a room furnished with a desk, computer, a few books, lots of files and one of those digital-age chairs that looks like a cross between a giant straw hat and a wire sculpture. Richard Ben Cramer sat in the chair for a few years of writing after a few years of reporting and has given new meaning to Paul Simon's lyric: "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?"

Last week, public television revisited Ernest Hemingway in "Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure." Tonight, another model of American masculinity from the post-war pages of Esquire magazine goes under the PBS microscope as the "American Experience" series brings us "Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life." Unlike Paul Simon, who wanted to know where Joltin' Joe had gone, the first business of this biography is in explaining from whence Joe came. The emphasis on DiMaggio's San Francisco roots -- both his family's poverty and his aversion to school and work -- is the first of many wise choices made by writer-producer Mark Zwonitzer and writer-narrator Richard Ben Cramer.

ON THE wall of fame at Enrico's Sports Bar, Haven and Pratt streets, in Highlandtown, there are photographs of all the great ones owner Bud Paolino's met and treasured over the years, from Rocky Marciano and Jack Dempsey to Mimi DiPietro and Du Burns to Charley Eckman and Pope John Paul II.But three of the old black-and-white pictures stand out: Joe DiMaggio in his glory, in his famous widespread eating stance, never breaking stride, devouring steamed crabs...

WASHINGTON -- There is peculiar pathos to the lives of most great athletes because their careers compress life's trajectory of aspiration, accomCOplishment and decline. Then what? For most, the rest of life, which is most of life, is anticlimax. But there was a seamlessness to Joe DiMaggio's life in and after the game. The patina of age did not dull the luster of his name. Baseball, sport of the long season and much history, has an unusually rich statistical geology. Some numbers are so talismanic that simply citing them suffices to identify the achievement and achiever.

JUST THINK what Joe DiMaggio would have accomplished if he'd played more than 13 seasons in the Bigs.World War II came along. Like Ted Williams and other stars of his generation, he served his nation as a soldier. Exploiting his exceptional skills, earning the adoration of multitudes, entertaining a nation, would wait.Even missing three seasons that could have been his best, Joe DiMaggio compiled a lifetime batting average of .325, led the American League in home runs twice, in runs-batted-in twice, in batting average twice and was its most valuable player thrice.

Always a distinctive and majestic model of grace, style and consistency. With glove or bat in hand, he was a baseball symphony. A rare gift of exquisite talent that flowed with classic movement. It all looked so easy. A Rembrandt in flannels.Yet personally, Joseph Paul DiMaggio was far more complex. Stoic. Introverted. Secretive. Arbitrary. Even rude. The public tried to make him a prisoner of adulation. And he fought against it all the way, even to his dying day.Joe DiMaggio was a private person, who, in a kind of paradoxical twist, absolutely craved attention even though his persona was often perceived of as being modest and withdrawing.