Joe DiMaggio

Joseph Paul “Joe” DiMaggio (November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999), was an American baseball player for the New York Yankees. He was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955. He was the middle of three brothers who each became major league center fielders, the others being Vince and Dom. DiMaggio was a 3-time MVP winner and 13-time All-Star (the only player to be selected for the All-Star Game in every season he played). At the time of his retirement, he had the fifth-most career home runs (361) and sixth-highest slugging percentage (.579) in history. He is perhaps best known for his 56-game hitting streak (May 15–July 16, 1941), a record that still stands. A 1969 poll conducted to coincide with the centennial of professional baseball voted him the sport’s greatest living player.Early life
DiMaggio was born in Martinez, California, the eighth of nine children born to immigrants from Italy, Giuseppe (1872–1949) and Rosalia (Mercurio) DiMaggio (1878–1951). He was delivered by a midwife identified on his birth certificate as Mrs. J. Pico. He was named after his father; “Paolo” was in honor of Giuseppe’s favorite saint, Saint Paul. The family moved to San Francisco, California when Joe was one year old.
Giuseppe was a fisherman, as were generations of DiMaggio’s before him. DiMaggio’s brother, Tom, told biographer Maury Allen that Rosalia’s father, also a fisherman, wrote to her that Giuseppe could earn a better living in California than in their native Isola delle Femmine. After being processed on Ellis Island, he worked his way across America, eventually settling near Rosalia’s father in Pittsburg, California. After four years, he was able to earn enough money to send for her and their daughter, who was born after he had left for the United States.

It was Giuseppe’s hope that his five sons would become fishermen. DiMaggio recalled that he would do anything to get out of cleaning his father’s boat, as the smell of dead fish nauseated him. Giuseppe called him “lazy” and “good for nothing”
DiMaggio was playing semi-pro ball when older brother Vince DiMaggio, playing for the San Francisco Seals, talked his manager into letting DiMaggio fill in at shortstop; he made his professional debut on October 1, 1932. From May 27 – 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, at the time were hoping to sell DiMaggio’s contract for $100,000. Scout Bill Essick of the New York Yankees, was convinced the Joe could overcome his knee injury and pestered the club to give DiMaggio another look. After DiMaggio 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 Most Valuable Player.

“The Yankee Clipper”
Joe DiMaggio’s number 5 was retired by the New York Yankees in 1952
DiMaggio 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 they won the next four Fall Classics. In total, DiMaggio led the Yankees to nine titles in 13 years.

Hank Greenberg told SPORT magazine in its September 1949 issue that DiMaggio covered so much ground in center field that the only way to get a hit against the Yankees was “to hit ‘em where Joe wasn’t.” DiMaggio had five steals of home, along with as many strikeouts as home runs in his career.

Through May 2009 DiMaggio was tied for third all-time with Mark McGwire in home runs over his first two calendar years in the major leagues (77), behind Phillies Hall of Famer Chuck Klein (83) and Milwaukee Brewers’ Ryan Braun (79).
On February 7, 1949, DiMaggio signed a record contract worth $100,000 ($70,000 plus bonuses), and became the first baseball player to break $100,000 in earnings. After a poor 1951 season, a scouting report by the Brooklyn Dodgers that was turned over to the New York Giants and leaked to the press, and various injuries, DiMaggio announced his retirement on December 11, 1951. When remarking on his retirement to the Sporting News on December 19, 1951, he said”I feel like I have reached the stage where I can no longer produce for my club, my manager, and my teammates. I had a poor year, but even if I had hit .350, this would have been my last year. I was full of aches and pains and it had become a chore for me to play. When baseball is no longer fun, it’s no longer a game, and so, I’ve played my last game.”

DiMaggio’s plaque at the Baseball Hall of Fame. He became eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1953. 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 accepted, 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 were almost impossible to get a home run: 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 other player in history. Left-center field went as far back as 457 ft, compared to ballparks today where left-center rarely reaches 380 ft. An illustration 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. To illustrate, DiMaggio hit 148 home runs in 3,360 at-bats at home, and in contrast, he hit 213 home runs in 3,461 at-bats on the road. His slugging percentage at home was .546, and on the road, it was .610. His on-base percentage at Yankee Stadium was .391; away, it was .405. He drove in 720 RBI at home and 817 on the road. Expert statistician, Bill Jenkinson, made a statement on these statistics:

For example, Joe DiMaggio was acutely handicapped by playing at Yankee Stadium. Every time he batted in his home field during his entire career, he did so knowing that it was physically impossible for him to hit a home run to the half of the field directly in front of him. If you look at