DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Our next guest has written a book about a Yankee legend, Joe DiMaggio. Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and author Richard Ben Cramer says that his biography, "Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life," was five years in the making. And that means he was holed up in a room, doing lot of writing, now we have got him out to talk among the folks. Thanks for coming out of the room and talking to us about your new book.</s>RICHARD BEN CRAMER, "JOE DIMAGGIO: THE HERO'S LIFE": Nice to be with you.</s>KAGAN: Had a chance to look at the book. You paint Joe DiMaggio, this man that so many people respect and admire from his years as a baseball legend, as kind of a loner and a control freak.</s>CRAMER: Yes, he was a very difficult, narrow controlled man. You know, Joe, what he feared the most was shame. If he couldn't do something perfectly, he didn't want to do it at all. Now that was great on the ball field because he could take care of himself there. He knew what to do. He never made a mistake. But, in the wider world of New York and the life of probably our greatest mid-century hero, there were a lot of pitfalls for him.</s>KAGAN: You tell a lot stories, especially how he handled money, was almost obsessed with cash, and being able to hold it, and see it, and handle it.</s>CRAMER: Yeah, in the latter years of his life, it really became an obsession. He was piling up the millions, you know. And nobody could figure out what it was for because he didn't want to buy anything. He never bought anything. He didn't have to. He was Joe DiMaggio.</s>KAGAN: This being CNN, we have the president to go to. We are going to have you stand by. We are going to continue our conversation in a moment, but right now we are going to go the White House and listen to President Clinton.
Author Richard Ben Cramer Discusses 'Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life'