SAN FRANCISCO — Nearly 70 years later, Alessandro Baccari still can't walk past Saints Peter and Paul Church without wondering whatever became of that $5 bill, the one Joe DiMaggio gave him.
On Nov. 19, 1939, Baccari was an 11-year-old boy from a prominent Italian family whose ties to the DiMaggios helped him pull a plum assignment: He was one of two altar boys for what at the time was the biggest wedding in San Francisco history — DiMaggio, the rising star of the Yankees, and actress Dorothy Arnold.
The church, which seated 1,000, was filled to capacity, and reports said more than 30,000 gathered outside in Washington Square, some in trees and atop street signs. Front and center at the altar, next to DiMaggio, Arnold and the priest, were Baccari and another boy, dressed in their black robes.
When he could, Baccari would scan the packed pews looking for the faces of DiMaggio's New York teammates, fresh off their World Series sweep of the Cincinnati Reds.
"After it ended, Joe gave us both crisp $5 bills. In those days, that was like a thousand dollars to a kid like me. The ballplayers all wrote their names on the bill," Baccari recalled, and then the excitement in his voice disappeared.
"Father Ryan, who was in charge of the altar boys, got word that we got money. 'Boys, that money belongs to the church,' he said. But it was full of those autographs. I bravely said, 'Father, can I go home and get a $5 bill from my father?' He wouldn't let me. I had all those names: Bill Dickey, Tony Lazzeri, Frankie Crosetti. All those names."
The autographed $5 bill is long gone. But the memories of growing up with the DiMaggio family are still vivid and priceless for Baccari and other North Beach oldtimers.
DiMaggio, who died 10 years ago in Hollywood, Fla., is admired in South Florida for his baseball legacy and his philanthropy — his efforts helped to establish the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital.
In San Francisco, he is revered as the ultimate hometown success story. Before Willie Mays or Barry Bonds, the city's baseball king was DiMaggio, the fisherman's son whose Hall of Fame career with the Yankees was preceded by three-plus seasons with the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League.
"I saw that attention he gave not only to me but others," said Baccari, who turns 81 on July 18. "He never tried to be overpowering or 'I'm the great Jo DiMaggio.' He was just there to serve as a mirror for us to see our potential. He allowed us to see something important, that we all have dreams."
In the 1930s, Baccari's father was a portrait artist and photographer who knew Giuseppe and Rosalie DiMaggio and their nine children, including three baseball-playing brothers — Joe, Dom and Vince.
Today, several of DiMaggio's nephews and nieces still live in San Francisco, said Emily DiMaggio, the widow of Joe's younger brother, Dom, who died May 8 in Marion, Mass.
Those DiMaggio relatives will join 25 close friends at Saints Peter and Paul on July 24 for a memorial service for Dom, the bespectacled Red Sox outfielder known as The Little Professor.
Baccari, a writer and historian, can't attend because he'll be in Europe researching a book. But he often stops by Lefty O'Doul's, a restaurant on Geary Street founded by another San Francisco baseball icon, to see photos of his old friends on the walls.
"I looked around at the pictures the other day," Baccari said, "and they're all gone."
Before DiMaggio, San Francisco native O'Doul was the city's baseball hero. He won the NL batting title in 1929, hitting .398 for the 1929 Phillies, before retiring after the 1934 season. He returned home to San Francisco to take DiMaggio, a rising prospect with Seals, under his wing.
He also took DiMaggio to Baccari's house for dinner.
"My mother would make pasta con piselli," recalled Baccari, whose father shot a portrait of a 17-year-old DiMaggio. "I'd wander into the kitchen, and guess who would be splitting the peas? Lefty and Joe!"
Baccari remembers getting fashion tips from Joltin' Joe: "Kid, always a shirt, always a tie. 'Bel-figuro!' You gotta look good!"
While DiMaggio's baseball career was filled with success, his personal life was more difficult. His marriage to Arnold ended in 1944. He was married again in San Francisco in 1954 — to Marilyn Monroe. They wed in a private ceremony at City Hall.
To this day, the Rev. Armand Oliveri still shakes his head at the tour guides who incorrectly point to Saints Peter and Paul Church as the place where Joe and Marilyn's tumultuous marriage began.
"They only took pictures in front of the church, so a lot of people see those pictures and take it for granted that they were married here," Oliveri said.
Baccari, founder of the Fisherman's Wharf Historical Society, appreciates those kinds of distinctions. He is listed among the acknowledgements in Richard Ben Cramer's "Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life," a 2000 biography that portrayed The Yankee Clipper in an unflattering light.
"They talk about Joe being cheap or mean, that's not the Joe I knew," Baccari said. "Maybe he was everything they described. But the Joe I knew and got to meet will always have a very treasured spot in my heart."
DiMaggio died in 1999 and was buried in San Francisco's Holy Cross Cemetery, where Baccari's parents are interred.
"When I go out there to see my parents, I'll stop by to see Joe," Baccari said. "I'll tell him, 'I just came by to say hello and to tell you a lot of us miss you.'"
Joe Capozzi writes for The Palm Beach Post. E-mail: joe(underscore)capozzi(at)pbpost.com.