Information AboutJoe Dimaggio |
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Joseph Paul DiMaggio , born '''Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio, Jr.''' ( November 25 , 1914 - March 8 , 1999 ), nicknamed ''Joltin' Joe'' and ''The Yankee Clipper'', was a Major League Baseball Center Fielder who played his entire career ( 1936 - 1951 ) for the New York Yankees . He was the brother of Vince and Dom DiMaggio. A 3-time MVP winner and 13-time All-Star who was widely hailed for his accomplishment on both offense and defense, as well as for the grace with which he played the game, at the time of his retirement at age 36 he had the 5th-most career Home Run s (361) and 6th-highest Slugging Percentage (.579) in history. A "picture-perfect" player, many rate his 56-game Hitting Streak ( May 15 - July 16 , 1941 ) as the top baseball feat of all time. A 1969 poll conducted to coincide with the centennial of professional baseball voted him the sport's greatest living player. EARLY LIFE The eighth of nine children, DiMaggio was born in a two-room house to Sicilian immigrants, delivered by a Midwife . His mother, Rosalia, named him "Giuseppe" for his father; "Paolo" was in honor of Saint Paul , Giuseppe's favorite saint. The family moved to San Francisco, California when Joe was one year old. Giuseppe was a Fisherman , as were generations of DiMaggios before him, and wanted all five of his sons to fish The Bay with him. Joe would do anything to get out of cleaning his father's boat, as the smell of dead fish made him sick to his stomach; this earned him Giuseppe's ire, who called him "lazy" and "good for nothing." It was only after Joe became the sensation of the Pacific Coast League that his father was finally won over. Joe was playing semi-pro ball when Vince, then with the San Francisco Seals , talked his manager into letting his kid brother fill in at Shortstop for the last three games of the 1932 season. Joe, making his debut on October 1 , couldn't play shortstop, but he could hit. From May 28 - July 25 , 1933 , he hit in 61 consecutive games. "Baseball didn't really get into my blood until I knocked off that hitting streak," DiMaggio said. "Getting a daily Hit became more important to me than eating, drinking or sleeping." However, in 1934, his career almost ended. Going to his sister's house for dinner, he tore the Ligament s in his left knee when he stepped out of a Jitney . The next day, he hit a homer, but had to ''walk'' around the bases. The Seals, hoping to sell Joe for as much as $100,000 – a staggering sum during the Great Depression – now couldn't give him away; the Chicago Cubs turned down a no-risk tryout. Fortunately, Yankees' scout Bill Essick pestered the team to give the 19-year-old another look. After Joe passed a test on his knee, he was bought on November 21 for $25,000 and 5 players, with the Seals keeping him for one more season. He Batted .398 with 154 RBIs and 34 HRs and led the Seals to the 1935 PCL title. "THE YANKEE CLIPPER" Touted by sportswriters as Babe Ruth , Ty Cobb and Shoeless Joe Jackson rolled into one, he made his major league debut on May 3 , 1936 , batting ahead of Lou Gehrig . The Yankees hadn't been to the World Series since 1932 , but, thanks in large part to their sensational rookie, they won the next four. DiMaggio is the only athlete in North American pro sports history to be on four championship teams in his first 4 full seasons. In total, he led the Yankees to 9 titles in 13 years. Teammate '' story reported that his mother told him Dom's wedding was to take place on October 7 unless the Boston Red Sox won the pennant, then it would be delayed ten days. "Mama," DiMaggio replied. "I will personally see to it that Dom is free to marry on the seventh." Although the Yankees lost its final two games to the Red Sox, allowing them to catch the Cleveland Indians , the Indians beat the Red Sox in a one-game playoff to win the pennant. On February 7 , 1949 , DiMaggio followed Ted Williams as the second baseball player to sign for $100,000 ($70,000 plus bonuses.) He was still regarded as its best player, but injuries got to the point where he couldn't take a step without pain. A sub-par 1951 season and a brutal scouting report by the Brooklyn Dodgers that was turned over to the New York Giants and leaked to the press led him to announce his retirement on December 11 . He amassed 361 home runs, averaged 118 runs batted in (RBI) annually, compiled a .325 lifetime batting average while winning two American League batting titles, and Struck Out only 369 times. Although he became eligible for the Baseball Hall Of Fame in 1953, rumors circulated that if he were elected, the Pittsburgh Pirates would sign him to the richest contract in the sport's history as a gate attraction. DiMaggio told '' Baseball Digest '' in 1963 that the Brooklyn Dodgers had offered him their managerial job in 1953, but he turned it down. He was not elected to the Hall until 1955; the rules were revised in the interim, with DiMaggio and Ted Lyons excepted, extending the waiting period from one year to five. He would likely have had even better statistics had his home park not been recalled that he and Whitey Ford would count the blasts DiMaggio hit that would have been home runs anywhere else, but, at the Stadium, were merely long outs. According to historian Bill James, DiMaggio lost more home runs due to his home park than any player in history. Left-center field went as far back as 457ft, compared to ballparks today where left-center rarely reaches 380ft. In 1949, Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey and Yankees GM Larry MacPhail verbally agreed to trade DiMaggio for Ted Williams , but MacPhail refused to include Yogi Berra . Had the deal gone through, Williams would have benefited from Yankee Stadium's short right-center fence while DiMaggio would have thrived at Fenway Park with its Green Monster . DiMaggio was given the nickname "Yankee Clipper" by broadcaster Arch McDonald for the gracefulness of his play in the field. MILITARY SERVICE Following the U.S. entrance in World War II , DiMaggio enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces on February 17 , 1943 , rising to the rank of Sergeant. While Ted Williams and Bob Feller saw action at their request, DiMaggio's popularity was such it was feared that if he was put in harm's way and killed, it would devastate morale. He was stationed at Santa Ana, California , Hawaii , and Atlantic City as a physical education instructor during his 31-month stint, and played baseball. Giuseppe and Rosalia DiMaggio were among the thousands of German, Japanese and Italian immigrants classified as "enemy aliens" after Pearl Harbor was attacked. They had to carry photo ID booklets at all times, weren't allowed to travel more than 5 miles from their home without a permit, and Giuseppe's boat was seized. Rosalia became an American citizen in 1944, Giuseppe in 1945. MARRIAGES 1954 ]] In January 1937, DiMaggio met actress Dorothy Arnold on the set of ''Manhattan Merry Go-Round'', in which he was featured and she was one of its adornments. They married at San Francisco's Catholic SS Peter and Paul on November 19 , 1939 as 20,000 well-wishers jammed the streets. Even before their son was to pitch, Dorothy and Lefty's wife, Broadway 's June O'Dea, dragged their husbands from one Manhattan nightspot to another; this continued while she was pregnant. He came to resent how she complained about his off-the-field activities while she spent his money. But when Dorothy threatened divorce in 1942, the usually unflappable DiMaggio went into a slump, and developed Ulcer s. After the season, she went to Reno, Nevada ; he followed her. But after he enlisted in the Army and was sent to Hawaii , she returned to Reno and obtained a Divorce . The relationship continued off and on. Dorothy reportedly promised Joe she would wait for him to return from 1946 training camp, but married another man. It was only after he met another blonde actress on a blind date in 1952 did he finally get her out of his system for good. According to her autobiography, , 1954 was the culmination of a courtship that had captivated the nation. The relationship was loving yet complex, marred by his jealousy and her ambition. DiMaggio biographer Richard Ben Cramer asserts it was also violent. One incident allegedly happened after the skirt-blowing scene in '' The Seven Year Itch '' was filmed on New York's Lexington Avenue before hundreds of fans; director Billy Wilder recalled "the look of death" on DiMaggio's face as he watched. When she filed for divorce just 274 days after the wedding, Oscar Levant quipped it proved that no man could be a success in two pastimes. He re-entered her life as her marriage to "dedicated" Best Song nominee "The Second Time Around" to them at the Academy Awards . According to biographer Maury Allen, Joe was so alarmed by Marilyn's return to her self-destructive ways, falling in with people he felt detrimental to her (including Frank Sinatra and his " Rat Pack "), he quit his job with a military post-exchange supplier on August 1 , 1962 to return to California to ask her to remarry him. But before he could, she was found dead on August 5 , a probable Suicide . Devastated, he claimed her body, and arranged her funeral, barring Hollywood's elite. He had a half-dozen red roses delivered 3 times a week to her crypt for the next 20 years. Unlike her other two husbands or other men who knew her intimately (or claimed to), he refused to talk about her publicly or "cash in" on the relationship. He never married again. It was announced on January 23 , 2006 that more than 1,000 pieces of DiMaggio memorabilia will be auctioned by his late son's adopted daughters in May. Among them, two letters Marilyn penned, and a photo signed: "I love you Joe". DEATH Following Lung Cancer surgery on October 14 , 1998 , DiMaggio fell into an 18-hour Coma on December 11 . The coma forced his lawyer, Morris Engelberg, to admit that the positive reports he had been feeding to the press were greatly exaggerated. He claimed Joe made him promise not to tell even his family about his condition. Joe was finally taken home on January 19 , 1999 . Days later, NBC broadcast a Premature Obituary ; Engelberg claimed he and DiMaggio were watching TV and saw it. His Last Words , according to Engelberg, were "I'll finally get to see Marilyn." However, the day after DiMaggio's death, a Hospice worker who cared for him gave a radically different account to '' The New York Post ''. DiMaggio is interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, California , despite his Excommunication from the Catholic Church when he married Marilyn (as a divorceé, she could not convert to Catholicism, hence, their marriage in a civil ceremony.) In his eulogy, Dom declared that his brother had everything "except the right woman to share his life with," a remark seeming to confirm the family's disapproval of Monroe. Cramer told the '' New York Times '' that Dom cooperated with him on his controversial biography, and got other family members to do likewise. The equally-controversial Engelberg offered dozens of signed bats on Shop At Home, for $3,000 each, weeks before DiMaggio died. In April 1999, he sued the City of San Francisco to stop its plan to name the North Beach park, where Joe learned to play baseball, after him. That June, he sold hundreds of items to a collectibles dealer, including baseballs DiMaggio signed on his deathbed, and offered Joe's personal effects at a Sotheby's auction. In 2003, Engelberg broke Attorney-client Privilege , and published his own book on DiMaggio as a rebuttal to Cramer's. Oddly, both books contain inaccuracies, salacious gossip, unsubstantiated claims and rely on the same discredited sources. Both state Joe thought Marilyn was murdered due to her involvement with the Kennedy Family ; Cramer even claims the coroner who performed her Autopsy "took a dive." Both draw the same conclusion: DiMaggio was a greedy humbug, convinced everyone was out to take advantage of him. LEGACY DiMaggio was used by artists as a touchstone in popular culture, not only during his career, but decades after he retired. In the '' South Pacific '' song, "Bloody Mary" has "skin tender as Dimaggio's glove". ''Joltin' Joe DiMaggio'' was recorded during his hitting streak by Les Brown . In Raymond Chandler 's '' Farewell, My Lovely '', Philip Marlowe follows the streak, which Chandler uses as a metaphor for good in Marlowe's debased world. A generation later, Simon And Garfunkel used him in that same vein in " Mrs. Robinson ". The literal-minded DiMaggio was reportedly not fond of the lyric "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?" as he was very much alive. gets a befuddled Porky Pig to "Steal home, DiMaggio! It means the game!" He is mentioned in Joss Stone 's "Whatever Happened to the Heroes?" and John Fogerty 's "Center Field." He and Monroe are mentioned in Billy Joel 's " We Didn't Start The Fire ," Madonna 's "Vogue," and Tori Amos 's "Father Lucifer." In 1971, Italian industrial design firm Poltronova released the "Joe" chair, shaped like a gigantic baseball glove. The original brown leather versions are considered a collectors' item and sell for USD $5,000-$7,000. He appeared in the original '' Angels In The Outfield '' (1951) and in ''The First of May'' (released in 1999). According to its director, DiMaggio refused payment as its subject, Foster Children , was dear to him, but Screen Actors Guild rules mandated he take the minimum $250 per day fee. His hitting streak has been used to compare similar feats in other sports. Johnny Unitas throwing at least 1 TD in 47 consecutive games is often cited as football's version. Martina Navratilova referred to her 74 straight match wins as "my DiMaggio streak." Wayne Gretzky 's 51-game point-scoring run also was compared with the streak. DiMaggio, however, was less than impressed, quoted as saying that Gretzky (who scored an empty-net goal in the final moments of a game to keep the streak alive) "never had to worry about a mid-game washout in the middle of the second period." On September 19 , 1992 , the ''Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital'' opened, for which he raised over $4,000,000. Elián González was taken there after he was rescued off the coast of Miami . Yankee Stadium's fifth monument was dedicated to DiMaggio on April 25 , 1999 . The monument replaced a plaque that previously hung at Monument Park, and before that on the center field wall. The monument calls him "A baseball legend and an American icon." Also on that date the West Side Highway was officially renamed in his honor. The Yankees wore a black number 5 (DiMaggio's uniform number) on the left sleeves of their uniforms for the 1999 season. DiMaggio ranked #11 on '' The Sporting News ''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was elected through fan balloting to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team . EXTERNAL LINKS
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