Joe DiMaggio

Joseph Paul DiMaggio, born Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio, Jr. (November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999) in Martinez, California and moved to San Francisco at one year old. He was nicknamed Joltin' Joe and The Yankee Clipper, was a Major League Baseball center fielder who played his entire MLB career (1936–1951) for the New York Yankees. He was the brother of Vince DiMaggio and Dom DiMaggio.

A 3-time MVP winner and 11-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 fifth-most career home runs (361) and sixth-highest slugging percentage (.579) in history.

A "picture-perfect" player, many rate his 56-game hitting streak (May 15 – July 17, 1941) as the top American sport 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

DiMaggio was the eighth of nine children born to Sicilian immigrants, delivered by a midwife identified on his birth certificate as Mrs. J. Pico. His mother, Rosalia, named him "Giuseppe" for his father; "Paolo" was in honor of Saint Paul, Giuseppe's favorite saint. The family moved from Martinez, California to San Francisco when Joe was one year old.

Giuseppe was a fisherman, as were generations of DiMaggios before him, and wanted his five sons to do the same. 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 (PCL) that the old man was finally won over.

Joe was in semi-pro ball when Vince, playing for the San Francisco Seals, talked his manager into letting Joe fill in at shortstop. Joe - making his debut on 1 October 1932 - could not play shortstop, but he could hit. From May 28 – July 25, 1933, he got at least one hit in a PCL-record 61 consecutive games: "Baseball didn't really get into my blood until I knocked off that hitting streak. Getting a daily hit became more important to me than eating, drinking or sleeping."

In 1934, his career almost ended. Going to his sister's house for dinner, he tore the ligaments in his left knee while stepping out of a jitney. The Seals, hoping to sell Joe for $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 the 1935 season. He batted .398 with 154 RBIs and 34 HRs, led the Seals to the 1935 PCL title, and was named the League's MVP.

"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 had not been to the World Series since 1932, but, thanks in large part to their sensational rookie, they won the next four Fall Classics. DiMaggio, Duane Sutter, Ken Morrow, John Havlicek, Satch Sanders, KC Jones, Jerry Coleman, Hank Bauer and Gene Guarilia are the only athletes in pro sports history to win 4 championships in their first 4 seasons. In total, he led the Yankees to nine titles in thirteen years.

On 7 February 1949, DiMaggio signed a contract for $100,000 ($70,000 plus bonuses). He was still regarded as the game's best player, but injuries got to the point where he could not 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 11 December 1951.

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 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 could be a nightmare: Mickey Mantle 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 (Ruth himself fell victim to that problem, as he also hit many long fly outs to center). Bill James calculated that 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. An illustration of this batting handicap is the oft-replayed clip of Al Gionfriddo's catch in the 1947 World Series, which was close to the 415 foot mark in left-center. Had it happened in Ebbets Field, it would have been well into the seats for a home run.

In 1949, Boston 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 could have benefited from Yankee Stadium's short right-center fence while DiMaggio could have thrived at Fenway Park with its Green Monster.

Military service

Following the U.S. entrance in World War II, DiMaggio enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces on February 17, 1942, rising to the rank of Sergeant. While Ted Williams, Bob Feller and Hank Greenberg served overseas 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, were not allowed to travel more than five miles from their home without a permit, and Giuseppe's boat was seized. Rosalia became an American citizen in 1944, Giuseppe in 1945.

Married Life

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DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe on their wedding day, 14 January 1954

In January 1937, DiMaggio met actress Dorothy Arnold on the set of Manhattan Merry Go-Round. 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 Joseph III was born, the marriage was in trouble. DiMaggio was like many ballplayers: a high-school dropout 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 advantage of her status as the wife of baseball's biggest star. DiMaggio biographer Michael Seidel reported that, except on the nights before Lefty Gomez was to pitch, Dorothy and Lefty's wife, Broadway's June O'Dea, would drag their husbands from one Manhattan nightspot to another. He resented 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 ulcers. She went to Reno, Nevada in February 1943; he followed her and they reconciled. But shortly after he enlisted in the Army and was sent to Hawaii, she filed for divorce in Los Angeles.

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, Marilyn Monroe did not want to meet DiMaggio, fearing he was a stereotypical jock. Both were at different points in their lives: the just-retired Joe wanted to settle down; Marilyn's career was taking off. Their elopement at San Francisco City Hall on January 14, 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 September 14, 1954 in front of New York's Trans-Lux Theater. Then-20th Century Fox's East Coast correspondent Bill Kobrin told the Palm Springs Desert Sun that it was Billy Wilder's idea to turn the shoot into a circus: "... every time her dress came up and the crowd started to get excited, DiMaggio just blew up." The couple then had a "yelling battle" in the theater lobby (see [1]). When she filed for divorce 274 days after the wedding, Oscar Levant quipped it proved that no man could be a success in two pastimes.

An August 1, 1956 International News wire photo of DiMaggio with Lee Meriwether announced their engagement, but Cramer wrote that it was a rumor started by Walter Winchell. He was later linked to 1957 Miss America Marian McKnight, who won the crown with a Marilyn act. Marilyn biographer Donald Spoto claimed they were "very close to marrying" but she denies it (see [2]). Biographers and news reports also linked him to Liz Renay, Cleo Moore, Marlene Dietrich, Morgan Fairchild, Gloria DeHaven, and Elizabeth Ray, but he never publicly confirmed any involvement.

DiMaggio re-entered Marilyn's life as her marriage to Arthur Miller was ending. On February 10, 1961, he secured her release from Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic (she was reportedly placed in the ward for the most seriously disturbed). She joined him in Florida where he was a batting coach for the Yankees. Their "just friends" claim did not stop remarriage rumors from flying. Reporters staked out her apartment building. Bob Hope "dedicated" Best Song nominee "The Second Time Around" to them at the Academy Awards.

According to biographer Maury Allen, Joe was so alarmed at how Marilyn had returned 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 ask her to remarry him. But before he could, she was found dead on August 5. Her death was deemed a probable suicide but is subject to endless conspiracy theories. 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.

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 broadcasted 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. In his eulogy, Dom DiMaggio 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. Richard Ben 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 of the 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."

Legacy

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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. 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, and had not gone anywhere. However, he changed his mind when he gained a whole new generation of fans from that song. When he died the London Times observed in its obituary that the lines from "Mrs Robinson" were what DiMaggio would be most remembered for.

Stephen Jay Gould often wrote of DiMaggio's hit streak as the only sports record that was an unpredictable anomaly based on statistical analysis, and therefore the greatest feat in all of sports.

Woody Guthrie wrote "DiMaggio Done It" about his performance in a crucial series against the Red Sox in June 1949 when surgery for bone spurs in his right heel kept him out of the Yankees' first 65 games and threatened his career. It is during this period Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea is set, Santiago drawing courage from his hero's ordeal.

DiMaggio is referenced in the Seinfeld episode "The Note", when Kramer claims to see him in a donut shop. In The Simpsons episode "'Tis The Fifteenth Season", Montgomery Burns gives Homer Simpson a DiMaggio rookie card. In Boobs in the Woods, Daffy Duck gets a befuddled Porky Pig to "Steal home, DiMaggio! It means the game!"

He is mentioned in The Stranglers "No More Heroes," and John Fogerty's "Center Field." He and Monroe are mentioned in Jennifer Lopez's "I'm Gonna Be Alright", Madonna's "Vogue", Tori Amos's "Father Lucifer", and Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire."

In 1971, Italian industrial design firm Poltronova released the "Joe" chair, shaped like a gigantic baseball glove. The original brown leather versions are considered collectors' items.

In 1974, he became spokesman for Mr. Coffee. Harvey Korman spoofed DiMaggio's commercials in a Carol Burnett Show episode.

He appeared in the original Angels in the Outfield and The First of May (released 1999). The First of May was DiMaggio's last and most involved motion picture cameo, requiring that he memorize lines for an entire scene. According to director Paul Sirmons, DiMaggio refused payment because the movie's subject, foster children, was dear to him, but Screen Actors Guild rules mandated he take the minimum $250 per day fee. (See The First of May - Official Web Site.)

His hitting streak has been used as a gold standard 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 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."

His consecutive game hitting streak was also a point of reference in the Star Trek univerise. In an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, a passing reference is made of an unnamed baseball player breaking DiMaggio's streak. That player later is revealed to be Harmon "Buck" Bokai of the London Kings, a favorite player of Commander Sisko in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

On September 17, 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. It replaced a plaque that previously hung at Monument Park: "A baseball legend and an American icon,the greatest player to play the game of baseball." Also on that date the West Side Highway was officially renamed in his honor. The Yankees wore DiMaggio's number 5 on the left sleeves of their uniforms for the 1999 season. He is ranked #11 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was elected by fans to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.

An auction of DiMaggio's personal items was held on May 19-20, 2006 by his son's adopted daughters. Highlights included: the ball hit to break Wee Willie Keeler's hitting-streak record ($63,250); 2,000th career hit ball ($29,900); 1947 Most Valuable Player Award ($281,750); uniform worn in the 1951 World Series ($195,500); Hall of Fame ring ($69,000); photograph Marilyn autographed "I love you Joe" ($80,500); her passport ($115,000); their marriage certificate ($23,000). The event netted a total of $4.1 million.

In an article in 1976 in Esquire magazine, sportswriter Harry Stein published an "All Time All-Star Argument Starter," consisting of five ethnic baseball teams. Joe DiMaggio was the center fielder on Stein's Italian team.

See also

• List of MLB individual streaks
• Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame

External links

• joedimaggio.com Official Joe DiMaggio Website
• Joe DiMaggio's Restaurant
• Career statistics from Baseball Reference
• baseballhalloffame.org baseball HofF
• baseballlibrary.com career statistics and information
• Joe DiMaggio at IMDb
• pbs.org documentary on DiMaggio
• washingtonpost.com obituary
• Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital
• Most of Joe DiMaggio's items sold from his estate