Joe DiMaggio
| Joe DiMaggio | |
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 DiMaggio in the jersey of the Yankees (1937)
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| Centerfielders | |
| Born: November 25, 1914 Martinez , United States 
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| Died on: March 8th, 1999 Hollywood , United States
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| Suggested: Right | Threw: Right |
| Debut in Major League Baseball | |
| May 3, 1936 with the New York Yankees | |
| Last MLB assignment | |
| September 30, 1951 with the New York Yankees | |
| MLB statistics (until 1951) |
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| Batting average | .325 |
| Hits | 2.214 |
| Home runs | 361 |
| RBI | 1,537 |
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| Awards | |
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| member of | |
 Baseball Hall of Fame
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| Recorded | 1955 |
| Quota | 88.84% (third ballot) |
Joseph Paul "Joe" DiMaggio (born November 25, 1914 in Martinez , California as Giuseppe Paolo Di Maggio, Jr. , † March 8, 1999 in Hollywood , Florida ) was an American baseball player of Italian origin. DiMaggio was also briefly married to Marilyn Monroe .
He is still considered a prime example of a player - both on the stroke and on the defensive in his regular position in center field. Many consider his unmatched series from 1941, in which he scored at least one hit in 56 consecutive games , to be the greatest individual achievement in baseball to date.
Known as "The Yankee Clipper" and because of his unusual position on the loft with his relatively wide open legs, DiMaggio won the title of Batting Champion twice (1939 and 1940) and three times that of Most Valuable Player (1939, 1941 and 1947) ). In 13 seasons he hit a total of 361 home runs , achieved an annual batted-in average of 118 runs and an overall batting average of .325 (i.e. 32.5%). When the baseball league celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1969, he was voted "greatest player still alive".
His older brother Vince and younger brother Dom were also professional baseball players. Vince was a star in the National League , while Dom played with the Boston Red Sox in the American League for eleven years . All three were known for their above-average defensive skills.
Life
youth
Giuseppe Paolo (Joseph Paul) DiMaggio was born in Martinez , California in a two bedroom house. His father, Giuseppe Sr., was a fisherman, like generations of the DiMaggios before. He was named after his father in the hope that he would be the last as an eighth child. He received his middle name Paul in honor of St. Paul , his father's "favorite saint ". The DiMaggio family moved to San Francisco when Joe was one year old.
His father hoped that his five sons would also become fishermen. Joe wasn't interested in it. He remembered that he always avoided cleaning his father's boat because the smell of dead fish made him sick. His father was very angry about it. He called him "lazy" and "no good". It wasn't until Joe's success as a baseball player in the Pacific Coast League that his father was proud of him.
His brother Vince persuaded the San Francisco Seals team to let his younger brother play in the last three games of the 1932 season on the so-called "shortstop" position. Joe could not convince on the defensive as a shortstop, but was successful on the offensive at the stroke. Between May 28 and July 25, 1933, he had a hit in 61 consecutive games - a so-called "hitting streak".
In 1934 his career seemed to be over. On his way to dinner at his sister's house, he tore a ligament in his knee while getting out of a taxi. The next day he still played baseball, hit a home run, but instead of running around the bases, he was just able to walk around them.
The San Francisco Seals saw Joe's worth and tried to sell him to another club. During the Great Depression, they were hoping for the then unheard-of sum of 100,000 US dollars , but the Chicago Cubs , in view of the knee injury themselves, refused a free and risk-free trial training for them.
New York Yankees
Talent scout Bill Essick convinced the New York Yankees to take another look at Joe. After a knee exam gave the go-ahead, the Yankees finally offered $ 25,000. The Seals agreed, provided Joe would play with them for another season. This led to Joe running up together with the five players who had already been "paid" by the Yankees as an additional transfer fee in exchange for him. Joltin 'Joe's batting average was .398, he hit 34 home runs and was responsible for 154 points (RBI) when the Seals won the 1935 Pacific Coast League title.
The sports journalists immediately chose him as the designated successor to Babe Ruth . He played his first game for the New York Yankees on May 3, 1936, in the batting order directly in front of the famous Lou Gehrig . The Yankees had not reached the finals of the World Series since 1932, but thanks in no small part to the sensational performances of their young player ( rookie ) they won the following four championships. Overall, Joe DiMaggio led the Yankees to nine titles in 13 years.
Second World War
In 1943 DiMaggio was drafted into the US Air Force . He was stationed first in Santa Ana (California) and Hawaii , later in Atlantic City , where he was employed as a sports coach and played baseball for the 7th season of the Air Force.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor , his parents were classified as "enemy aliens" - despite the fact that the sons were already popular athletes in America. The parents were required to carry identification with them at all times, were not allowed to go further than five miles from their place of residence without permission, and the father's fishing boat was confiscated.
End of career
On February 7, 1949, DiMaggio was the first professional athlete to ever sign a contract with an annual salary of $ 100,000 ($ 70,000 salary plus bonuses). He was still considered the best baseball player. But increasing injuries meant that he could hardly walk without pain. In 1951 he played a weak season for his standards. When a negative assessment of his performance by a rival club leaked to the press, Joe decided to end his career on December 11, 1951. His successor in the center field position was the young Mickey Mantle . Surprisingly, despite his immense reputation and popularity, he was only elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on the third attempt in 1955 .
Relationship with Marilyn Monroe
In January 1937 Joe met Dorothy Arnold. They were married on November 19, 1939 in Church of St. Peter and Paul in San Francisco. This event filled the streets with well-wishers and the curious. Shortly after the birth of their son Joseph III on October 23, 1941, the marriage began to break up. Joe lost his shape and developed stomach ulcers , and they divorced in 1944.
In 1952, Joe met the love of his life on a blind date . It was the film actress Marilyn Monroe .
After almost 18 months of courtship, intensely followed by the public and the press, the two finally married on January 14, 1954 in the City Hall of San Francisco. Subsequently, Joe was excommunicated from the Catholic Church for bigamy .
What followed was a tumultuous marriage that was loving, but suffered from the extreme personalities of both, and from Joe's jealousy and Marilyn's infidelity. Joe also found it difficult to bear the fact that Monroe was still enjoying great fame at the time, while after his retirement as an athlete he was no longer cheered.
According to DiMaggio biographer Ben Cramer, there was also a dose of violence in the marriage. So DiMaggio had while watching the filming of the famous scene in the film 7. Year Itch ( The Seven Year Itch ), in which in New York subway ventilation shaft underground is swirled in front of hundreds onlookers Monroe's skirt on one, according to statements of the director Billy Wilder had "a death look" on his face. After just 274 days of marriage, Monroe filed for divorce.
In 1961, Marilyn re-entered Joe's life after her marriage to writer Arthur Miller failed. On February 7th, she was admitted to a mental hospital and admitted to the most severe case department. Joe arranged for her to be moved to another clinic. After her release, she met him in Florida, where he was a coach at the Yankees training camp. Nobody believed her statements that they were just good friends, and rumors of remarriage quickly spread. Marilyn's New York apartment was constantly besieged by reporters.
Maury Allen claims in his DiMaggio biography that Joe gave up his $ 100,000 job with the Yankees to return to California and proposed to Marilyn again.
After Marilyn's death on August 5, 1962, Joe attended to the funeral. For the next 20 years, he arranged for 20 red roses to be delivered to her grave three times a week. Unlike some other men who knew Marilyn well (or at least claimed to be), Joe DiMaggio never spoke publicly about their marriage or even wrote a book. He never married again afterwards.
Aftermath
DiMaggio became immortal in another way: Ernest Hemingway has the old Cuban fisherman say in his novel The Old Man and the Sea : “ I would like to take the great DiMaggio fishing. They say his father was a fisherman ”. At the end of the novel the old fisherman asks himself repeatedly: “ What would the great DiMaggio do now? ". Taken as a whole, the old man often wonders what “the great Joe DiMaggio” thinks of the current situation or what he would do.
In Dick Richards' film Go to Hell, Darling , DiMaggio's famous hitting streak serves as a structuring element. The film begins and ends with Philip Marlowe's monologues referring to DiMaggio. DiMaggio's sporty form illustrates the tension in the film in the form of short dialogues or illustrated newspaper pages.
In the late 1960s, Simon and Garfunkel asked in their song Mrs. Robinson from the film The Graduation : “ Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you. " John Fogerty pays tribute to DiMaggio in his 1985 song Centerfield :" So say hey, Willie, tell the Cobb / And Joe DiMaggio / Don't say it ain't so, you know the time is now ". In Madonna's song Vogue he is celebrated among other style icons: " Greta Garbo , and Monroe / Dietrich and DiMaggio / Marlon Brando , Jimmy Dean / On the cover of a magazine ". Billy Joel also mentions him in the first verse of We Didn't Start the Fire : " Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray / South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio " and Tom Waits in the song A Sight For Sore Eyes : " That we toast to the old days and DiMaggio too / And old Drysdale and Mantle, Whitey Ford and to you ".
In episode 1 of the 3rd season of Seinfeld (German: "Zur Massage!"; English: "The Note"), Kramer says several times that he recognizes DiMaggio in the common regular café of his friends and tries to attract his attention through particularly noticeable behavior close. The viewer does not see the person and thus the resolution as to whether it is actually DiMaggio, however.
Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital in Hollywood , Florida opened its doors on September 19, 1992 , for which Joe has raised and contributed more than $ 4 million in donations.
Joe DiMaggio died of lung cancer at his home in Hollywood, Florida and is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma , California . On April 25, 1999, a memorial in his honor was unveiled in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium , where memorial stones and plaques and the retired numbers of former members are displayed for Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle and Lou Gehrig, among others.
As early as 1952 after retiring from his career, the Yankees decided that no player would ever wear a shirt with the number 5 again.
Web links
- Player information and statistics from Baseball Reference or Fangraphs or The Baseball Cube or Baseball Reference (Minor League) (English)
- Official Joe DiMaggio website (English)
- Joe DiMaggio in the Baseball Hall of Fame (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kent Jones: Long Goodbyes Film Comment, July / August 2010, accessed July 29, 2015
- ↑ knerger.de: The grave of Joe DiMaggio
| personal data | |
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| SURNAME | DiMaggio, Joe |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | DiMaggio, Giuseppe Paolo (birth name); DiMaggio, Joseph Paul |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American baseball player |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 25, 1914 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Martinez , California, United States |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 8, 1999 |
| Place of death | Hollywood , Florida, United States |