S.F. Lawsuit Seeks Permission to Name Park for DiMaggio

Saying the memory of baseball star Joe DiMaggio should not “be held hostage to the whim of that hero’s estate,” San Francisco asked a judge Thursday to allow it to go ahead and name a city park after the late, great New York Yankee.

In legal papers filed with U.S. District Court in Miami, a lawyer representing San Francisco asked the court to reject legal efforts by attorney Morris Engelberg, who controls the right to commercial uses of DiMaggio’s name, to block the naming of the park.

“Naming landmarks after heroes is an American tradition,” attorney Walfrido Martinez argued, citing the vast number of “Lincoln Boulevards,” “John F. Kennedy High Schools” and “Martin Luther King Jr. Drives” across the country.

“Must all such ‘unlicensed’ parks, streets or buildings now be renamed at the heirs’ request? The public’s right to honor a hero should not be held hostage to the whim of that hero’s estate.”

Engelberg sued this month after the city approved a plan to refurbish a small park in the North Beach neighborhood for about $4.4 million and rename it for DiMaggio, who died in March 1999 at 84.

Maintaining that a playground was not a suitable honor for DiMaggio, Engelberg suggested that if the city truly wished to honor one of its best loved sons it would name an airport or a bridge after him.