Joltin' Joe is considered the most complete baseball player of his generation. His legend goes beyond that. Baseball has produced many sports legends but it has produced only one DiMaggio. Joe was an icon both on and off the field, an lasting symbol of baseball greatness, loved and admired by America fully, half century after his final game in 1952. A class player.

Son of immigrants from southern Italy, Giuseppe Paolo (Joe) DiMaggio Jr., the eighth of nine children, was born in November 1914, in Martinez, California, a small village north of San Francisco where his father was a fisherman. As teenagers the DiMaggio boys went crabbing with their father. Joe did not like the work and tried to avoid it. Baseball eventually did the trick.

A new twelve year Yankee dynasty started with Joe's arrival on the team in 1936 after three years in the minor leagues. Joe immediately sparked them to a pennant and World Series win that year. Four season and four World Series championships. that is how Joe started his major league career. Then over his entire 13 year career the Yankees won 9 World Series. that's a .690 average!

Tens of thousands of Italian Americans cheered him on the day he first appeared in center field for the Yanks, May 3 , 1936.

DiMaggio soon became known as "Joltin' Joe" for the power of his bat and "The Yankee Clipper" for the speedy clippers that crossed the Atlantic Ocean under sail. He led the league with a career-high of 46 home runs in 1936. Over the term of his career DiMaggio hit 361 home runs.
DiMaggio's batting average in 1937 was an impressive .346 with 167 RBI's, in '38 Joe hit .328 and in 1939 nothing less than .380.

Joe is best remembered for his Streak, his fifty-six game hitting streak of 1941. It started May 15th and ended July 17th. Joe was hitting .406 and fans all over the country anxiously checked each game day in the papers and on radio to see if the Yankee Clipper had kept his streak going.

The Less Brown Orchestra had a huge hit that year with their recording "Joltin' The Yankee Clipper" that sung the praises of The Yankee Clipper".

After the 52 game streak ended he immediately went on a 16 -game batting streak.

He was batting .305 in 1942 when Joe received his army draft papers. Joe served three years in the army and returned to baseball in 1946

In 1948 DiMaggio had returned to the height of his form, winning the home run title with 39, the RBI crown with 155, and the batting title with a .320 average.
He retired in 1951 with a career batting average of .325. But for his service in World War II, that average could have been higher yet.

After baseball came Marilyn Monroe, whom Joe met and married. He was 39, she 27 when they married on Jan. 14 , 1954. Though divorced less than a year later they remained good friends . Joe took charge of funeral plans after her tragic death and he arranged for flowers on her grave for decades after that.

"Where have you gone The Yankee Clipper? A nation turn its lonely eyes to you". These Paul Simon lyrics from the great Simon and Garfunkel hit "Mrs. Robinson" exemplify what this man has come to symbolize in American.

After DiMaggio retired Joe hosted pre-game TV shows, game shows and made numerous television commercials that Americans loved to see. Joe was elected to the Baseball Hall of fame in 1955.

On March 8th, 1999 DiMaggio passed away at his home in Hollywood Florida at age 95.
A modest man, DiMaggio did not revel in fame but did play with the enthusiasm and discipline required to earn it. DiMaggio is remembered with admiration not only by sports fans, but by all who know his story.

The New York Times once wrote of him, "It is not for DiMaggio's records that we remember him. Joe 's best remembered for the persona of Joltin' Joe DiMaggio . Joe remains a living symbol of excellence, elegance, power and, to be sure , gentleness."

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