XXXXX DRUDGE RETORT XXXXX 20:34:17 UTC JAN 26 1999 XXXXX

Report: DiMaggio Kills Reporter, Feeling 'Much Better'!

By Rogers Cadenhead
**Must Credit the DRUDGE RETORT**

Baseball legend Joe DiMaggio, hoping to dispel recent media reports of his failing health, tore his ventilator from the wall Tuesday morning and beat an former NBC news anchor to death with it, according to a source close to the White House.

"You want a deathbed interview?" the holder of baseball's longest hitting streak taunted Linda Ellerbee as he slugged her repeatedly with a metal tube that broke off the lifesaving medical device. "Lie down and talk to yourself!"

Ellerbee, who didn't initially recognize Joltin' Joe, was in Hollywood, Fla., visiting friends and hasn't worked in network journalism since 1986.

[The killing was committed with a BIO-MED IC-2A, a pneumatically driven ventilator designed for pediatric and adult care. Durable, lightweight, and low cost. Call 1-800-2BIO-MED to order.]

Complaints have been pouring in from across the world since news of the incident first broke on this site 17 minutes ago:

• "They should just leave Joe the hell alone," said Bob Hope, himself a subject of a greatly exaggerated death report that fooled House Majority Leader Dick Armey in June 1998.
• "Let this be a lesson to Tom Brokaw," MSNBC commentator Geraldo Rivera confided.
• "Your Web site totally sucks," TV commentator Ann Coulter e-mailed to the RETORT.

The media has been stung in recent days with several credible reports of DiMaggio hovering at death's door, sticking a foot inside death's door, or actually walking through.

NBC'S DATELINE reported for 20 minutes on Sunday night that DiMaggio had died, which was news to the Yankee slugger as he watched the program in his Hollywood, Fla., home.

WCVB-TV commentator Mike Barnicle followed early Monday with a report on a deathbed conversation he had with DiMaggio about Marilyn Monroe's affairs with JFK, RFK and Jim McKay, longtime host of ABC's WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS.

"Yes," Barnicle reported DiMaggio as saying. "I believed."

BOSTON PHOENIX media critic Dan Kennedy reported late Monday that Barnicle's DiMaggio quotes were lifted directly from Bob Woodward's 1986 deathbed interview with Bill Casey.

The DRUDGE RETORT made absolutely no attempt to contact DiMaggio for comment.

© DRUDGE RETORT 1999