Joe DiMaggio

Joseph Paul DiMaggio (November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999), nicknamed "Joltin' Joe", "The Yankee Clipper" and "Joe D.", was an American baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career in Major League Baseball for the New York Yankees. Born to Sicilian immigrants in California, he is widely considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time, and is best known for setting the record for the longest hitting streak in baseball (56 games from May 15 – July 16, 1941), which still stands.

DiMaggio was a three-time Most Valuable Player Award winner and an All-Star in each of his 13 seasons. During his tenure with the Yankees, the club won ten American League pennants and nine World Series championships. His nine career World Series rings is second only to fellow Yankee Yogi Berra, who won ten.

At the time of his retirement after the 1951 season, he ranked fifth in career home runs (361) and sixth in career slugging percentage (.579). He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955 and was voted the sport's greatest living player in a poll taken during baseball's centennial year of 1969. His brothers Vince (1912–1986) and Dom (1917–2009) also were major league center fielders. Outside of baseball, DiMaggio is also widely known for his marriage and life-long devotion to Marilyn Monroe.

Early life

DiMaggio was born Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio on November 25, 1914 in Martinez, California, the eighth of nine children born to Sicilian immigrants Giuseppe and Rosalia DiMaggio, from Isola delle Femmine. Rosalia named her eighth child "Giuseppe" in the hope he would be the DiMaggios' last child; "Paolo" was for Giuseppe's favorite saint, Saint Paul.

Giuseppe was a fisherman, as were generations of DiMaggios before him. Joe's brother Dom told Maury Allen that Rosalia's father wrote to her saying Giuseppe could earn a better living in California than in Isola delle Femmine. After being processed on Ellis Island, Giuseppe worked his way across America, eventually settling near Rosalia's father in Pittsburg, California, on the east side of the San Francisco Bay Area. After four years, he earned enough money to send for Rosalia and their daughter, who was born after he had left for the United States. When Joe DiMaggio was a toddler, Giuseppe moved his whole family to a North Beach apartment in San Francisco, California. Giuseppe hoped that his five sons would become fishermen.

DiMaggio recalled that he would do anything to get out of cleaning his father's boat, as the smell of dead fish nauseated him. Giuseppe called him "lazy" and "good-for-nothing". At age ten, Joe DiMaggio took up baseball at the neighborhood sandlots, playing third base at the North Beach playground near their home by Fisherman’s Wharf. After completing his schooling at Hancock Elementary and Francisco Jr. High, DiMaggio did not finish his education at Galileo High School and instead worked odd jobs including hawking newspapers, stacking boxes at a warehouse and working at an orange juice plant.

In 1931, DiMaggio began playing semi-pro ball. At the end of the 1932 season, older brother Vince, playing for the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League (PCL), talked his manager into letting DiMaggio fill in at shortstop. He made his professional debut on October 1, 1932, and played the last three games of the season. In less than two years, DiMaggio made the jump from playground games to the PCL, one notch below the majors. In his full rookie year, from May 27 to July 25, 1933, he hit safely in 61 consecutive games, a PCL-record, and second-longest in Minor League Baseball history. "Baseball didn't really get into my blood until I knocked off that hitting streak," he said. "Getting a daily hit became more important to me than eating, drinking or sleeping".

In 1934 DiMaggio suffered a potentially career-threatening knee injury when he tore ligaments while stepping out of a jitney. Scout Bill Essick of the New York Yankees, convinced that the injury would heal, pestered his club to give him another look. After DiMaggio passed a physical examination in November, the Yankees purchased his contract for $50,000 and five players. He remained with the Seals for the 1935 season and batted .398 with 154 runs batted in (RBIs) and 34 home runs. His team won the 1935 PCL title, and DiMaggio was named the league's Most Valuable Player.

Major league career

DiMaggio made his major league debut on May 3, 1936, batting ahead of Lou Gehrig in the lineup. The Yankees had not been to the World Series since 1932, but they won the next four World Series. Over the course of his 13-year Major League career, DiMaggio led the Yankees to nine World Series championships, where he trails only Yogi Berra (10) in that category.

DiMaggio set a franchise record for rookies in 1936 by hitting 29 home runs. DiMaggio accomplished the feat in 138 games. His record stood for over 80 years until it was shattered by Aaron Judge, who tallied 52 homers in 2017.

In 1937, DiMaggio built upon his rookie season by leading the majors with 46 home runs, 151 runs scored and 418 total bases. He also hit safely in 43 of 44 games from June 27 to August 12. He finished second in American League MVP voting in a close race with Charlie Gehringer of the Detroit Tigers.

In 1939, DiMaggio was nicknamed the "Yankee Clipper" by Yankee's play-by-play announcer Arch McDonald, when he likened DiMaggio's speed and range in the outfield to the then-new Pan American airliner. That year in August, DiMaggio recorded 53 RBIs, tying Hack Wilson's 1930 record for most in a single month. He also won his first career batting title and MVP award, as well as leading the Yankees to their fourth consecutive World Series championship.

DiMaggio was pictured with his son on the cover of the inaugural issue of ''SPORT'' magazine in September 1946.

In 1947, DiMaggio won his third MVP award and his sixth World Series with the Yankees. That year, Boston Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey and Yankees GM Larry MacPhail verbally agreed to trade DiMaggio for Ted Williams, but the trade was cancelled when MacPhail refused to include Yogi Berra.

In the September 1949 issue of ''SPORT'', Hank Greenberg said that DiMaggio covered so much ground in center field that the only way to get a hit against the Yankees was "to hit 'em where Joe wasn't." DiMaggio also stole home five times in his career.

On February 7, 1949, DiMaggio signed a contract worth $100,000 ($ in current dollar terms) ($70,000 plus bonuses), and became the first baseball player to break $100,000 in earnings. By 1950, he was ranked the second-best center fielder by the ''Sporting News'', after Larry Doby. After a poor 1951 season, various injuries, and a scouting report by the Brooklyn Dodgers that was turned over to the New York Giants and leaked to the press, DiMaggio announced his retirement at age 37 on December 11, 1951. When remarking on his retirement to the ''Sporting News'' on December 19, 1951, he said:

I feel like I have reached the stage where I can no longer produce for my club, my manager, and my teammates. I had a poor year, but even if I had hit .350, this would have been my last year. I was full of aches and pains and it had become a chore for me to play. When baseball is no longer fun, it's no longer a game, and so, I've played my last game.

Through May 2009, DiMaggio was tied with Mark McGwire for third place all-time in home runs over the first two calendar years in the major leagues (77), behind Phillies Hall of Famer Chuck Klein (83), and Milwaukee Brewers' Ryan Braun (79). Through 2011, he was one of seven major leaguers to have had at least four 30-homer, 100-RBI seasons in their first five years, along with Chuck Klein, Ted Williams, Ralph Kiner, Mark Teixeira, Albert Pujols, and Ryan Braun. DiMaggio holds the record for most seasons with more home runs than strikeouts (minimum 20 home runs), a feat he accomplished seven times, and five times consecutively from 1937 to 1941. DiMaggio could have possibly exceeded 500 home runs and 2,000 RBIs had he not served in the military during World War II, causing him to miss the 1943, 1944, and 1945 seasons.

DiMaggio might have had better power-hitting statistics had his home park not been Yankee Stadium. As "The House That Ruth Built", its nearby right field favored the Babe's left-handed power. For right-handed hitters, its deep left and center fields made home runs almost impossible. Mickey Mantle recalled that he and Whitey Ford witnessed many DiMaggio blasts that would have been home runs anywhere other than Yankee Stadium (Ruth himself fell victim to that problem, as he also hit many long flyouts to center). Bill James calculated that DiMaggio lost more home runs due to his home park than any other player in history. Left-center field went as far back as 457 ft 39 m where left-center rarely reaches 380 ft 16 min today's ballparks. Al Gionfriddo's famous catch in the 1947 World Series, which was close to the 415-foot mark 26 min left-center, would have been a home run in the Yankees' current ballpark. DiMaggio hit 148 home runs in 3,360 at-bats at home versus 213 home runs in 3,461 at-bats on the road. His slugging percentage at home was .546, and on the road, it was .610. Statistician Bill Jenkinson commented on these figures:

For example, Joe DiMaggio was acutely handicapped by playing at Yankee Stadium. Every time he batted in his home field during his entire career, he did so knowing that it was physically impossible for him to hit a home run to the half of the field directly in front of him. If you look at a baseball field from foul line to foul line, it has a 90-degree radius. From the power alley in left-center field (430 in Joe's time) to the fence in deep right center field (407 ft), it is 45-degrees. And Joe DiMaggio never hit a single home run over the fences at Yankee Stadium in that 45-degree graveyard. It was just too far. Joe was plenty strong; he routinely hit balls in the 425-foot range. But that just wasn't good enough in cavernous Yankee Stadium. Like Ruth, he benefited from a few easy homers each season due to the short foul line distances. But he lost many more than he gained by constantly hitting long fly outs toward center field. Whereas most sluggers perform better on their home fields, DiMaggio hit only 41 percent of his career home runs in the Bronx. He hit 148 homers at Yankee Stadium. If he had hit the same exact pattern of batted balls with a typical modern stadium as his home, he would have belted about 225 homers during his home field career.

DiMaggio became eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1953 but he was not elected until 1955. The Hall of Fame rules on the post-retirement induction waiting period had been revised in the interim, extending the waiting period from one to five years, but DiMaggio and Ted Lyons were exempted from the rule. DiMaggio told ''Baseball Digest'' in 1963 that the Brooklyn Dodgers had offered him their managerial job in 1953, but he turned it down. After being out of baseball since his retirement as an active player, DiMaggio joined the newly relocated Oakland Athletics as a vice president in 1968 and 1969 and a coach in just the first of those two seasons. The appointment allowed him to qualify
for MLB's maximum pension allowance of which he had fallen two years short upon his retirement. During his only campaign as a coach, he helped improve the talents of players such as Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando and Joe Rudi who became part of the team's nucleus when it won three consecutive World Series from 1972 to 1974.

1941 hitting streak

DiMaggio's most famous achievement is his MLB record-breaking 56-game hitting streak in 1941. The streak began on May 15, a couple of weeks before the death of Lou Gehrig—who had been DiMaggio's teammate from 1936 to 1939—when DiMaggio went one-for-four against Chicago White Sox pitcher Eddie Smith. Major newspapers began to write about DiMaggio's streak early on, but as he approached George Sisler's modern-era record of 41 games, it became a national phenomenon. Initially, DiMaggio showed little interest in breaking Sisler's record, saying: "I'm not thinking a whole lot about it... I'll either break it or I won't." As he approached Sisler's record, DiMaggio showed more interest, saying, "At the start I didn't think much about it... but naturally I'd like to get the record since I am this close." On June 29, 1941, DiMaggio doubled in the first game of a doubleheader against the Washington Senators at Griffith Stadium to tie Sisler's record and then singled in the nightcap to extend his streak to 42.

A Yankee Stadium crowd of 52,832 fans watched DiMaggio tie the all-time hitting streak record (44 games, Wee Willie Keeler in 1897) on July 1. The next day against the Boston Red Sox, he homered into Yankee Stadium's left field stands to extend his streak to 45, setting a new record. DiMaggio recorded 67 hits in 179 at-bats during the first 45 games of his streak, while Keeler recorded 88 hits in 201 at-bats. DiMaggio continued hitting after breaking Keeler's record, reaching 50 straight games on July 11 against the St. Louis Browns. On July 17 at Cleveland's Municipal Stadium, DiMaggio's streak was finally snapped at 56 games, thanks in part to two backhand stops by Indians third baseman Ken Keltner. DiMaggio batted .408 during the streak with 15 home runs and 55 RBI. The day after the streak ended DiMaggio started another streak that lasted 16 games, therefore hitting safely in 72 of 73 games. The closest anyone has come to equaling DiMaggio is Pete Rose, who hit safely in 44 straight games in 1978. During the streak, DiMaggio played in seven doubleheaders. The Yankees' record during the streak was 41–13–2.

Some consider DiMaggio's streak a uniquely outstanding and unbreakable record and a statistical near-impossibility. Nobel Prize-winning physicist and sabermetrician Edward Mills Purcell calculated that, to have the likelihood of a hitting streak of 50 games occurring in the history of baseball up to the late 1980s be greater than 50%, fifty-two .350 lifetime hitters would have to have existed instead of the actual three (Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, and Shoeless Joe Jackson). His Harvard colleague Stephen Jay Gould, citing Purcell's work, called DiMaggio's 56-game achievement "the most extraordinary thing that ever happened in American sports". Samuel Arbesman and Steven Strogatz of Cornell University disagree. They conducted 10,000 computer simulations of Major League Baseball from 1871 to 2005, 42% of which produced streaks as long or longer, with record streaks ranging from 39 to 109 games and typical record streaks between 50 and 64 games.

World War II

DiMaggio enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces on February 17, 1943, rising to the rank of sergeant. He was stationed at Santa Ana, California, Hawaii, and Atlantic City, New Jersey, as a physical education instructor. He was released on a medical discharge in September 1945, due to chronic stomach ulcers. Other than being paid $21 a month, DiMaggio's service was as comfortable as a soldier's life could be. He spent most of his military career playing for baseball teams and in exhibition games against fellow Major Leaguers and minor league players, and superiors gave him special privileges due to his prewar fame. DiMaggio ate so well from an athlete-only diet that he gained 10 pounds, and while in Hawaii he and other players mostly tanned on the beach and drank. Embarrassed by his lifestyle, DiMaggio requested that he be given a combat assignment but was turned down.

Parents as "enemy aliens"

Giuseppe and Rosalia DiMaggio, both from Isola delle Femmine, were among the thousands of German, Japanese, and Italian immigrants classified as "enemy aliens" by the government after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Each was required to carry photo ID booklets at all times and were not allowed to travel outside a five-mile radius from their home without a permit. Giuseppe was barred from San Francisco Bay, where he had fished for decades, and his boat was seized. Rosalia became an American citizen in 1945, followed by Giuseppe in 1946.

Marriages

Dorothy Arnold

In January 1937, DiMaggio met actress Dorothy Arnold on the set of ''Manhattan Merry-Go-Round'', in which he had a minor role, and she was an extra. He announced their engagement on April 25, 1939, just before the Yankees were to meet the Philadelphia Athletics (The Yankees won that game 8 to 4, belting out 13 hits, including three by DiMaggio and the only two-hit performance that year by the ailing Lou Gehrig.) They married at San Francisco's Sts. Peter and Paul Church on November 19, 1939, as 20,000 well-wishers jammed the streets. Their son, Joseph Paul DiMaggio Jr. (1941–1999), was born at Doctors Hospital in Staten Island. The couple divorced in 1944, while he was on leave from the Yankees during World War II.

Marilyn Monroe

According to her autobiography ''My Story'', ghostwritten by Ben Hecht, Marilyn Monroe originally did not want to meet DiMaggio, fearing he was a stereotypically arrogant athlete. They eloped at San Francisco City Hall on January 14, 1954. Although she suffered from endometriosis, Monroe and DiMaggio each expressed to reporters their desire to start a family.

The union was troubled from the start by DiMaggio's jealousy and controlling attitude; he was also physically abusive. A violent fight between the couple occurred immediately after the skirt-blowing scene in ''The Seven Year Itch'' that was filmed on September 14, 1954, in front of Manhattan's Trans-Lux 52nd Street Theater. Then 20th Century Fox's East Coast correspondent Bill Kobrin told the ''Palm Springs Desert Sun'' that it was director Billy Wilder's idea to turn the shoot into a media circus. The couple then had a "yelling battle" in the theater lobby. After returning from New York City to Hollywood in October 1954, Monroe filed for divorce from DiMaggio after only nine months of marriage. DiMaggio underwent therapy, stopped drinking alcohol, and expanded his interests beyond baseball.

On August 1, 1956, an International News wire photo of DiMaggio with Lee Meriwether gave rise to speculation that they were engaged, but DiMaggio biographer Richard Ben Cramer wrote that it was a rumor started by columnist Walter Winchell. Monroe biographer Donald Spoto claimed that DiMaggio was "very close to marrying" 1957 Miss America Marian McKnight, who won the crown with a Marilyn Monroe act, but McKnight denied it. He was also linked to Liz Renay, Cleo Moore

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