Joe DiMaggio

Joe DiMaggio, the Yankee-Clipper. We have all heard about him and know he was a great baseball player, but what do we really know about him? I wanted to know more so I researched the man and was blown away with what I found!

Perhaps the best known baseball this side of Babe Ruth was a fella born in Martinez, California on November 25, 1914 named Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio. To the baseball world he is known as Joe DiMaggio. There are hundreds of places you can go to learn about the stats of Jumpin' Joe and we will cover a few of them, but the stories with in the story of Joe D. are truly what makes him an interesting figure in  the chronicles of sports.

Joe DiMaggio in this circa 1940 Harris -Ewing photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

For starters let's pay this great ball player his respects by what he did on the field. Joe had a 13 year career for the New York Yankees spanning from 1936 through 1951 that was interupted for three seasons when he served his country in World War II. He wore Number 9 at first as a rookie but then chaned his pinstriped uniform adornment to display the Number 5. His career batting average was an amazing .325 with 361 homeruns, 2214 hits and 1537 RBIs per the Baseball-Reference website.

According to the website JoeDiMaggio.com The legendary Yankee Centerfielder had ten top-10 finishes in the Most Valuable Player voting in his 13 year career, and he took home the hardware for the award three times. Joe was a member of every All-Star team selected in every season in the big leagues he played, yes 13 times in 13 years! DiMaggio was the MLB's Player of the Year and won two batting titles. He also led the majors in HRs on two different occassions as well as was at the head of the pack twice in Runs Batted In. This legendary player played on nine World Series Championship teams and in one other Title Series in which the Yanks lost.

DiMaggio recorded 8 homeruns in the World Series games he played in but not one of them was in Yankee Stadium. There was one that could have though. It happened in Game 6 of the 1947 World Series as cross-town national League rivals the Brooklyn Dodgers were playing the Yankees for the World Series crown. With two outs in the 6th inning Dimaggio was up to bat with runners on first and second. Dodger lefthanded pitcher Joe Hatten was brought in to face the DiMaggio. Joe took a pitch right across the plate and belted in long to left field. The ball sent the Brooklyn outfielder back, back back and just before a short fence that seperated the bullpen at about 415 feet the ball was caught by Al Gionfriddo. The Dodgers held on to wint Game 6, 8-6 to force a game 7 with the Yanks. The New York club won it all the next evening in that game 7 5-2 to take the title.

DiMaggio had a great 56-game hitting streak that started on May 15, 1941 ran all the way until just after the All-Star break on July 16. During that hitting streak, Joe D. batted .408 with 15 homers, with an amazing 55 RBIs while only goingdown on strikes a mere five times. DiMaggio even had a hit in the All-Star Game during the streak though it was not counted as part of the games in succession with hits.What was even more amazing was the fact that twenty two of the games in the streak were multi-hit games! Now that is being a very productive player wouldn't you say?

Many think that the 1939 Yankees may be  one of the best teams ever assembled, and I think those that say that may be right. The yankees that season finished with a record of 106-45 and joining DiMaggio in the line up were names like Bill Dickey, Babe Dahllgren, Joe Goordon, Red Rolfe, George Sellkirk, Charlie Keller and Frank Crosetti. Their biggest star from the seasons past couln't even play much that year because of health issues. Lou Gehrig had his number retired on June 21 that season as his health declined.

Joe DiMaggio and Lou Gehrig were able to play together for 4 seasons before illness set in preventing Lou from playing on. Despite popular misconseptions Babe Ruth did not ever play inthe same Yankee lineup as DiMaggio. The Sultan of Swing retired two years prior to Joe joining the Yankees.

Joe DiMaggio was not only a Big League hitter and fielder but he could also play the field quite well in the Big Leagues of personal life too. Joe married not one but two stars of the day, Dorothy Arnold and Marilyn Monroe.

Arnold was a Hollywood actress who appeared in 15 Universal Studios films from 1937 to 1939, starring alongside other big names such as Bela Lugosi, Robert Kent and William Gargan. She put her acting career on pause after marrying DiMaggio. Unfortunately the couple were divorced after a short time.

After Joe playing career was over he got the gumption to be introduced to an up and coming blonde bombshell, Marilyn Monroe. The two had an odd long distance relationship of dating as Jo was predominantly on the East coast while Marilyn did her business around Hollywood. The couple finally got to the point of marriage being discussed. The trick was how do you arrange something like that with two busy people living thousands of miles apart from each other?

According to Ms. Monroe, Joe came up with the last-minute marriage plan that would fit each of their very busy and hectic life schedules. “‘You’re having all this trouble with the studio and not working so why don’t we get married now? I’ve got to go to Japan anyway on some baseball business, and we could make a honeymoon out of the trip,’” Monroe recalls DiMaggio saying. “And so we were married and took off for Japan on our honeymoon.”

This bond of marriage also ended up in not lasting but Joe kept himself busy in the public eye. He was still very much affiliated with the game of baseball, even managing in the Big Leagues for a couple of years. Later in life he became the spokesperson for Mr. COffee brand coffe makers, and helped to sell millions of them!

Joe DiMaggio what an interesting life!

Of course we also could not have done the above stat research without the assistance of Basketball-Reference.com and Stathead.com resources.

The banner photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and is a view of Joe Di Maggio's (DiMaggio's) Restaurant, Fisherman's Wharf, Famous thurout the World, Vincint Di Maggio (DiMaggio), Dominic Di Maggio taken by Curt Teich Co.