![\"Simon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Simon-and-Garfunkel-Paul-Simon-Art-Garfunkel-Far-Out-Magazine--1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Sony Music Entertainment)<\/p>\n
Mon 17 November 2025 0:00, UK <\/p>\n
There is no shortage of people wearing New York Yankees caps in the UK<\/a>, despite the fact that very few of those people could name a single current member of the actual baseball team (Babe Ruth, who played 100 years ago, seems to be the go-to answer). Things aren\u2019t necessarily as different as you\u2019d expect in the US, however, where the gradual decline in the national popularity of baseball has also made the Yankee cap far more of a fashion statement than any sort of indication of sports fandom.<\/p>\n There was once a time, of course, when baseball truly was the beloved \u201cNational Pastime\u201d of America, and its greatest heroes weren\u2019t just household names, but in some cases, the biggest celebrities in the country. That was certainly the case during the playing career of Joe DiMaggio, AKA \u2018The Yankee Clipper\u2019, who spent his entire 13-year Major League career with New York, taking three years off in his prime to serve in World War II.<\/p>\n After his retirement in 1951, DiMaggio arguably achieved an even greater level of fame and scrutiny when he started dating and eventually married Hollywood\u2019s most popular young actor, Marilyn Monroe<\/a>. They were the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce of their day, in some respects, but DiMaggio was a far less extroverted gentleman than Mr Kelce, and the tension between his desire for privacy and the stratospheric level of Monroe\u2019s fame eventually destroyed their marriage after less than a year \u2013 largely because DiMaggio had become increasingly jealous, controlling, and abusive.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, to the American public, \u201cJoltin\u2019 Joe\u201d still represented something pure and humble and patriotic \u2013 a no-nonsense icon of \u2018The Greatest Generation\u2019 that many conservative-minded folks nostalgically preferred over the new type of more outspoken athletes and celebrities emerging during the 1950s and \u201860s.<\/p>\n To the counterculture, by contrast, DiMaggio was a square, an old man, a relic of the past.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why, when Simon and Garfunkel released their hit song \u2018Mrs Robinson\u2019 \u2013 first as part of the soundtrack to the 1967 film The Graduate<\/a>, and later on their own 1968 record Bookends \u2013 the 54-year-old DiMaggio wasn\u2019t sure what to think of the most famous lyric therein: <\/p>\n \u201cWhere have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.\u201d<\/p>\n Simon and Garfunkel\u00a0\u2013 \u2018Mrs Robinson\u2019<\/p>\n As Paul Simon later recalled to USA Today in 2008, DiMaggio\u2019s initial reaction \u201cwas that maybe we were making fun of him\u201d.<\/p>\n Once Simon actually got the chance to meet the Yankee legend, however, \u2018Mrs Robinson\u2019 had already reached the number one spot in the country, \u201cAnd obviously people weren\u2019t taking it as mocking DiMaggio,\u201d Simon said. \u201cHe was pleased.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a funny thing about that song,\u201d DiMaggio told the Detroit Free Press years later in a 1984 feature. \u201cWhen it first came out, it was 1967 and I was a special coach out in Oakland. I was working with young players and they didn\u2019t think much about me one way or another\u2014until they heard that song. I remember them dragging me inside to listen to it. They were really impressed that someone would write me into a song like that.\u201d<\/p>\n