When was joe dimaggio born

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.

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 - could not play shortstop, but he could hit.

From May 28 — July 25 , , 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 , 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.

Fortunately, Yankees' scout Bill Essick pestered the team to give the year-old another look. He batted. The Yankees had not been to the World Series since , and had won only 1 pennant in 7 years, but, thanks in large part to Joe DiMaggio, they won the next four Fall Classics.

Bauer and Coleman were the only other baseball players in the group, In total, he led the Yankees to nine titles in thirteen years. His hitting streak led to an ulcer condition, not generally known, which troubled him for the rest of his life and led to a medical discharge slightly earlier than planned.

Bauer once described DiMaggio as a "red-ass," a man whose drive to win was all-consuming. This extended even to family: a TIME profile reported that his mother told him Dom 's wedding was to take place on October 7 unless the Red Sox won the pennant, then it would be delayed ten days. 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 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 DiMaggio played in 10 World Series setting a record by playing in every game of each one , with 9 of them Yankee winners losing only to the St.

Louis Cardinals in 5 games. Although he became eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame in , 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 [ citation needed ]. DiMaggio told Baseball Digest in that the Brooklyn Dodgers had offered him their managerial job in , but he turned it down.

One factor which worked against him was Italian prejudice. No Italian player to date has been elected in his first year of eligibility - not even Yogi Berra. He was not elected to the Hall until ; 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 better statistics had his home park not been Yankee Stadium. As The House That Ruth Built , it was designed to accommodate the Babe's left-handed power other reports suggest the short right-field porch was due to the way the parcel of land it sits on was shaped. For right-handed hitters, it was 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.

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 ft, compared to ballparks today where left-center rarely reaches ft.

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.

Following the U. 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 [ citation needed ].

He was stationed at Santa Ana, California , Hawaii , and Atlantic City as a physical education instructor during his 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. DiMaggio sat out the first two months of the season with problems in his heel, but, as always, his return was memorable.

DiMaggio played in pain during his first games for new manager Casey Stengel — , but he hit four home runs in three games and helped the Yankees bring home another pennant.

In , with another soon-to-be Yankee superstar, young Mickey Mantle, on the scene, DiMaggio's average slipped to. DiMaggio announced his retirement in when he was thirty-seven. This would have been his fourth contract of this size in a row. DiMaggio said, "When baseball is no longer fun, it's no longer a game. This means that no Yankee baseball player will ever wear that number again.

After DiMaggio retired he hosted television shows shown before baseball games, made television commercials, and was briefly married to the Hollywood actress Marilyn Monroe — He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in , named the "Greatest Living Player" in in a poll of sportswriters, and was named as a member of the All-Century Team in He was always a modest man and always worked to play his best game even when faced with health problems.

Joe DiMaggio is remembered as an inspiration not only for sports fans, but for all people. Allen, Maury. The Story of America's Last Hero. New York: Dutton, Cramer, Richard Ben. Seidel, Michael. Streak: DiMaggio and the Summer of ' He also puts together a game hitting streak. The one condition is that the year-old center fielder spend the season playing again with San Francisco.

The first illuminated night game in the major league begins May: On May 3, DiMaggio goes 3 for 6 in his first game with the Yankees. He will hit 29 home runs for the season, still a New York Yankee rookie record. He hits a scorching. In his first game back, Yankee fans boo his every move.

An examination at the Mayo Clinic reveals he is suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a degenerative nerve disease. She is 21; DiMaggio is six days shy of June: Lou Gehrig dies.

July: On the 17th of July, DiMaggio goes hitless. His hitting streak is finished at 56 games. Army in San Francisco. He spends much of his time playing baseball and shuffling in and out of hospitals to treat his ulcer. He will miss three seasons during the prime of his career. October: Dorothy Arnold files for divorce. He becomes the first black man in modern baseball history to play in a major league game. Brooklynites yell "Jackie, Jackie, Jackie," cheering the son of a sharecropper and the grandson of a slave.

Receiving eight first-place votes compared to three for the Red Sox slugger, the Yankee Clipper edged his perennial rival by a single point, In the sixth inning, the Yankees, trailing 8—5, put two men on with two out, bringing DiMaggio to the plate as the tying run. Gionfriddo, a seldom-used outfielder, had entered the game that inning as a defensive replacement. In a rare display of emotion, the famously stoic star kicked at the dirt near second base when he saw that Gionfriddo had caught the ball.

Playing in games, in spite of a bone spur in his right heel, he led the league in home runs, RBIs, and total bases, and finished second to Lou Boudreau in the MVP vote. The season proved to be one of the worst of his career; however, his heroic midseason return from injury helped cement his reputation as an inspirational team leader.

With the press speculating that the Yankee Clipper might be nearing the end of the road, a sullen DiMaggio isolated himself in his hotel room. Then, in mid-June, the pain suddenly disappeared. Two weeks later he made his debut in a crucial series against the Red Sox at Fenway. In the opener, on June 28, he drove in two runs and scored two in a 5—4 win.

The next day he hit two homers and drove in four, then wrapped up his first regular-season series since the previous September with his fourth homer in three games and three RBIs. The sweep put the Yankees eight games ahead of the Red Sox. Boston bounced back with a late-season surge that gave them a one-game lead over New York with two games at Yankee Stadium remaining. DiMaggio, meanwhile, had been hospitalized in September with pneumonia, but was in the starting lineup when the final series began.

With the Yankees trailing, 4—0, he doubled in the fourth and scored their first run in the 5—4 win that brought the two teams to a tie with one game left. Drained of energy and realizing that he was a detriment to his team, DiMaggio ran in from center field, taking himself out of the game.

The Yankees held on to win the game, 5—3, and the pennant. Limited to 76 games, he hit. DiMaggio was able to play in games in , hitting. But age and injury limited him to games in , when he hit only 12 homers and compiled the lowest average of his career at. In the six years he played after the war, DiMaggio remained the leader of a Yankees team that won the World Series in each of his final three seasons. But while he won the MVP Award in , and was one of his best seasons, overall his postwar performance was not at the same level as it had been before the war.

In his career, DiMaggio, hit. He was an All-Star in each of his 13 seasons and, in addition to winning three MVP Awards, he finished in the top nine seven other times. Perhaps more impressive than any other statistic is the fact that in 6, times at bat, he struck out times — only eight more than his total number of home runs — for an average of once every But he was admired not only for what he did on the field but for how he looked doing it.

A lot of guys, all you had to see to know they were great was a stat sheet. DiMaggio, you had to see. In the eyes of his contemporaries, Joe DiMaggio was universally considered the best player they had ever seen. He could do it all. Joe was the best, the very best I ever saw. I looked around and noticed nobody was watching the pitcher throw the ball.