Joe DiMaggio

Joseph Paul DiMaggio, born Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio (November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999), was an American baseball player.

A "picture player" at bat and in center field, many rate his 56-game hitting streak (from May 15 - July 16, 1941) as the top baseball feat of all time. His older brother Vince and younger brother Dom were major leaguers. (Vince was a National League All-Star. Dom played for 11 years with the Boston Red Sox. All three were noted for their defense.)

Contents

1 Early life 2 "The Yankee Clipper" 3 "Enemy aliens" 4 Marriages 5 Death 6 Legacy 7 External links

Early life

The 8th of 9 children, Joe DiMaggio was born in a two-room house in Martinez, California, a town 35 miles east of San Francisco. He was delivered by a midwife. His mother named him "Giuseppe" for his father; "Paolo" was in honor of St. Paul, his father's favorite saint. The family moved to San Francisco when Joe was a year old.

Giuseppe Sr. was a fisherman, as were generations of DiMaggios before him. He hoped all five of his sons would follow his footsteps, but Joe had no desire to. Joe recalled that he 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 the old man was finally won over.

Joe was playing semi-pro ball when his brother Vince, playing with the San Francisco Seals, talked his manager into letting his kid brother fill in at shortstop for the last three games of the season. Joe, making his pro debut on October 1, 1932, it turned out, couldn't play shortstop well, 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, Joe tore the ligaments 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 get as much as $100,000, a staggering sum in the Great Depression, couldn't give him away; the Chicago Cubs turned down a no-risk tryout. Fortunately, scout Bill Essick pestered the New York Yankees to give the 19 year old another look. After Joe passed a test on his knee, the Yankees bought him on November 21 for $25,000 and 5 players, with the Seals keeping him another year. 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 combined, he made his 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.

On February 7, 1949, DiMaggio became the first pro athlete to sign for $100,000 ($70,000 + bonuses). He was still regarded as the game's 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 NL champion New York Giants and leaked to the press convinced him to announce his retirement on December 11, 1951, turning center field over to Mickey Mantle. Joe was not elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame until his third try in 1955. He amassed 361 home runs, averaged 118 runs batted in (RBI) annually, compiled a .325 lifetime batting average, and struck out only 369 times. He won two batting crowns and three MVP awards.

DiMaggio would have even better statistics if his home park had been any park other than Yankee Stadium. As it was "The House That (Babe) Ruth Built," Yankee Stadium was designed to accommodate The Sultan of Swat. Hence, for right-handed power hitters like DiMaggio, it was a nightmare. Left-center field went as far back as 457ft, compared to ballparks today where left center rarely reachs 380ft.

DiMaggio was given the nickname Yankee Clipper by broadcaster Arch McDonald.

"Enemy aliens"

Joe DiMaggio enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces on February 17, 1943, rising to the rank of Sergeant. While fellow superstars 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 Rosalie DiMaggio were among the thousands of German, Japanese and Italian immigrants deemed "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. Rosalie became an American citizen in 1944; Giuseppe in 1945.

Marriages

In January 1937, DiMaggio met 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 Church of Sts. Peter's and Paul's on November 19, 1939 as well-wishers jammed the streets.

Even before their son, Joseph III, was born, the marriage was in trouble. DiMaggio was like most ballplayers: a high-school dropout with limited social skills whose life revolved around the game. While not the "party animal" Babe Ruth was, he had his fun, leaving Dorothy feeling neglected. However, she was an ambitious social-climber who took full advantage of her status as the wife of baseball's biggest star. He came to resent how she complained about his off-the-field activities while she spent his money. But, when she threatened to divorce him in 1942, the usually unflappable DiMaggio went into a slump, and developed ulcers. After the season, she went to Reno, Nevada to get a divorce. He followed her, and they reconciled. But, after he enlisted in the Army and was sent to Hawaii, she returned to Reno. She divorced him in 1944.

The relationship continued off and on. Dorothy promised Joe she would wait for him to return from 1946 spring training, but married another man while he was away. It was only after he met the love of his life on a blind date in 1952 did DiMaggio finally get her out of his system for good.

According to her autobiography, Marilyn Monroe did not want to meet DiMaggio, imagining he had bulging muscles and wore pink ties. Both were at different points in their lives: the just-retired DiMaggio wanted to settle down; Marilyn's career was taking off. They married at San Francisco City Hall on January 14, 1954, the culmination of a courtship that had captivated the nation (he was excommunicated by the Catholic Church for bigamy).

By all accounts, their relationship was loving yet complex, marred by his jealousy and her casual infidelity. 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 Arthur Miller was ending. In February 1961, DiMaggio secured Monroe's release from a psychiatric clinic (she was reportedly placed in the ward for the most seriously disturbed). She later joined him in Florida where he was a batting coach at the Yankees' training camp. Their "just friends" claim didn't stop remarriage rumors from flying. Reporters staked out Monroe's Manhattan apartment building. Bob Hope even "dedicated" Best Song nominee The Second Time Around to them at the Academy Awards.

According to DiMaggio biographer Maury Allen, Joe was alarmed at how Marilyn had returned to her self-destructive habits, associating with people he considered detrimental to her well-being (including Frank Sinatra and his "Rat Pack"). Joe quit his job with a military post-exchange supplier to ask Marilyn to remarry him. But, before he could, she was found dead on August 5, 1962, a probable suicide. He claimed her body and arranged her funeral. He had a dozen red roses delivered 3 times a week to her crypt for 20 years. Unlike other men who knew her intimately (or claimed to), he never talked about her publicly nor wrote a book. He never married again.

Death

Early in 1999, NBC erroneously broadcast a premature obituary of DiMaggio following newspaper reports that he was close to death. However, he did die of complications from lung cancer surgery shortly afterwards at his home. His last words, according to Engelberg (see below), were "I'll finally get to see Marilyn." (Famous last words)

He is interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, California south of San Francisco. In his eulogy at St. Peters and Paul Church in North Beach (San Francisco's Italian neighborhood), Dom DiMaggio declared his brother had everything except "the right woman to share his life with," a remark seeming to confirm the family's disapproval of Monroe. Richard Ben Cramer told the New York Times that Dom cooperated with him on his controversial biography, and got other family members to.

The equally-controversial executor of DiMaggio's estate, Morris Engelberg, offered dozens of signed bats on Shop At Home for $3,000 each weeks before DiMaggio died. Weeks after DiMaggio died, Engelberg 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 DiMaggio pieces to a sports collectibles dealer, including baseballs DiMaggio signed on his deathbed, and offered several of DiMaggio's personal items at a Sotheby's auction. In 2003, Engelberg published his own book on DiMaggio.

Legacy

DiMaggio was used by artists as a touchstone in American culture, not only during his career, but decades after he retired. He is mentioned in the South Pacific song "Bloody Mary." "Joltin' Joe DiMaggio," recorded during his hitting streak by Les Brown, was a big hit. In Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely, Philip Marlowe follows DiMaggio's streak, which Chandler uses as a metaphor for good in an increasingly-debased world. A generation later, Simon and Garfunkel used DiMaggio 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 himself was very much alive and well.

Woody Guthrie wrote a song about DiMaggio's tremendous performance in a crucial series against the Boston Red Sox in June 1949, when surgery for bone spurs had kept DiMaggio out of the Yankees' first 65 games and threatened to end his career. It is during this period Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea is set, the worshipful Santiago drawing courage from his hero's ordeal. DiMaggio is even referenced in the Porky Pig/Daffy Duck cartoon, Boobs in the Woods.

He was admired by his peers as a consummate professional, refusing to rest on his skills, working constantly to improve, and playing in spite of tremendous pain and injuries. On July 21, 1969, DiMaggio was named the greatest living player at a gala celebrating baseball's 100th anniversary.

No doubt, his place in American culture would have been different had he not become involved with Monroe, and had she not died young and under tragic circumstances. His refusal to "cash in" on their union enhanced his standing with the public as a man of integrity.

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 on what would have been DiMaggio's 85th birthday.

Yankee Stadium's fifth monument was dedicated to DiMaggio on April 25, 1999. The Yankees wore 5's (DiMaggio's uniform number) on the right side of their uniforms for the entire 1999 season.

External links

• Baseball Hall of Fame (http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/hofer_bios/dimaggio_joe.htm)
• Template:Baseball-referenceda:Joe DiMaggio

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