Joltin’ Joe Has Left and Gone Away

New York Yankees great Joe DiMaggio batted .325 over 13 seasons with the Bronx Bombers and grabbed the attention of the whole nation in 1941 with his 56-game hitting streak. A mark that has not been challenged since. (Reuters)

March 8 — Joe DiMaggio, whose near-flawless play as a New York Yankee made him one of the greatest baseball players in the history of the game and a national legend to generations of fans, died today.

DiMaggio’s attorney and longtime friend, Morris Engelberg, said the 84-year-old former Yankee was released from the hospital Jan. 18. DiMaggio spent 99 days in intensive care at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Fla., after contracting lung cancer.

His last public appearance was Sept. 27, when he was honored at Yankee Stadium and received replicas of nine championship rings. The New York Yankees had wanted him to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at the World Series, but by then he was in the hospital. He marked his 84th birthday in the hospital on Nov. 25, surrounded by family, including his brother, Dom, and two great-grandchildren.

During his career from 1936 to 1951, DiMaggio towered over the league. He won three MVP Awards and led the team to 8 World Series championships, and in the storied 1941 season he hit safely in 56 consecutive games, a record many believe will never be broken.

The streak captivated the nation from May 15 to mid-July, as fans everywhere huddled around radios, many asking "Did DiMag get a hit?" It inspired a popular song, "Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio," and after DiMaggio was held hitless against Cleveland on July 17, he then went on another streak of 17 games.

Many considered DiMaggio to be the best all-around baseball player ever, with a fluid swing and agile outfielding ability. His manager, Joe McCarthy, called him a complete player, and fellow Yankees considered him a dedicated teammate. Despite frequent physical ailments that forced him to retire at age 36, he compiled a lifetime batting average of .325.

A Joe DiMaggio Timeline

1914: Born Nov. 25 in Martinez, Calif, the eighth of nine children of Joseph Paul and Rosalia DiMaggio.

1932: Starts in his first game with the San Francisco Seals minor league team as a shortstop.

1934: The New York Yankees aqcuire DiMaggio for $25,000 and five players.

1939: Wins his first American League Most Valuable Player award.

1941: Hits safely in a record 56 consecutive games, and earns his second AL MVP award.

1943-1945: Serves in the Army and misses three seasons.

1947: Wins third MVP award, and Yankees win World Series.

1949: Despite illness, his batting helps win pennant over Boston and World Series, and DiMaggio becomes the American League’s first $100,000 player.

1951: Hampered by injuries, retires.

1954: Marries actress Marilyn Monroe. The couple divorces the same year.

1955: Elected into the Baseball of Hall of Fame.

1969: Named by sportswriters as the Greatest Living Player.

1968-1989: Serves as a spring training coach and executive vice president of the Oakland Athletics.

1999: DiMaggio dies at his Florida home at 84.

When DiMaggio was once asked why he played so hard in every game, he replied, "Because there might be somebody out there who's never seen me play before." Though the 1941 hitting streak may be what DiMaggio is most remembered for, others fondly recall a grace in center field that gave DiMaggio his "Yankee Clipper" nickname.

"I never seen him, you know, like some of these guys, slide for a ball," Yankee teammate Yogi Berra recalled in a 1997 HBO documentary. "You never seen a green stain on his pants. You never did. He caught everything belt-high or shoulder-high. He caught everything. He just had the instinct."

Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio Jr. was born in Martinez, Calif., in 1914, the son of Italian immigrants from Sicily, and grew up in the San Francisco area. The eighth of nine children of Joseph Paul and Rosalia DiMaggio, who had come from Isola della Femmine off the coast of Sicily, he grew up in the Russian Hill section of San Francisco.

His father was a fisherman, something Ernest Hemingway would later note in "The Old Man and the Sea."

"I would like to take the great DiMaggio fishing," the Cuban fisherman of the story says. "They say his father was a fisherman. Maybe he was as poor as we are and would understand."

DiMaggio was not the only talented baseball player in the family. Younger brother Dom was an all-star player with the Boston Red Sox for 11 seasons, and older brother Vince played with teams including the Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds.

It was with the help of older brother Vince that DiMaggio got a tryout with the San Francisco Seals minor league team in 1934. He would quickly become a local celebrity there during several seasons, hitting safely in 61 consecutive games and racking up batting averages of .340 and .341.

That caught the eye of the New York Yankees. He joined the Yankees in 1936 after being acquired for $25,000, and in his debut at Yankee Stadium was cheered by a crowd that included 25,000 Italian-Americans. In his rookie season he hit .323 and led the league with 46 home runs.

DiMaggio’s career took a back burner to serving in the military in World War II, and in his three years in the Army he played baseball in the Pacific and across the United States.

He spent his entire major league career with the Yankees, and while his exploits on the field would make him a legend, off the field DiMaggio kept to himself, teammates said. Teammate Phil Rizzuto, recalling the game against Cleveland when DiMaggio’s streak was broken, said that after the game DiMaggio brushed off teammates, preferring to sit alone in a bar he often frequented.

After retiring from the Yankees in 1951, DiMaggio was named to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955, and in 1954 he married the nation’s most famous movie star, Marilyn Monroe. Together they became the nation’s most celebrated couple, though they would divorce nine months later. After Monroe’s death in 1962, for years DiMaggio would often lay flowers on Monroe’s grave.

In a 1966 article for Esquire, writer Gay Talese related a now-famous anecdote — which DiMaggio would later confirm — from DiMaggio and Monroe’s honeymoon in Japan. Monroe had gone off on a USO tour, and upon seeing DiMaggio again excitedly told him of her trip.

"Joe, there were a hundred thousand people there and they were all cheering and clapping; you've never seen anything like it," she told him.

"Yes, I have," DiMaggio responded.

An earlier marriage to Dorothy Arnold ended in divorce, and the couple had one child.

DiMaggio remained active in Major League Baseball as a spring training coach and executive vice president for the Oakland Athletics from 1968-1989. And he was often on hand for appearances at Yankee Stadium during World Series and old-timers games. In 1969, he was named the Greatest Living Player in a poll of sportswriters.

To younger generations, DiMaggio was immortalized through Simon and Garfunkel’s song "Mrs. Robinson," whose line "Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you" conveyed the country’s longing for heroes. DiMaggio once said that at first he did not know what to make of the song’s reference, but approved of it once songwriter Paul Simon later explained it to him.

Also involved in sports broadcasting, he later became known as "Mr. Coffee" for his Mr. Coffee commercials. In his later years he lived in Florida, and he rarely gave interviews. Some like journalist David Halberstam, whose books on baseball include a retelling of the 1949 pennant race when DiMaggio’s Yankees beat Ted Williams’ Red Sox, say the Yankee Clipper was very protective of the DiMaggio legend.

"He’s the keeper of his own flame," Halberstam once said.

But DiMaggio remained a legend till the end, still a hero to modern players who weren’t even born when he had played.

Last September during Joe DiMaggio Day at Yankee Stadium, current players like pitcher David Wells was waiting for an autograph, as Chili Davis and reliever Jeff Nelson also held a baseball and a pen in hopes of getting the coveted signature.