Joe DiMaggio | |||
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DiMaggio, c.1939
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Center fielder | |||
Born: Martinez, California |
November 25, 1914|||
Died: March 8, 1999 Hollywood, Florida |
(aged 84)|||
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MLB debut | |||
May 3, 1936, for the New York Yankees | |||
Last MLB appearance | |||
September 30, 1951, for the New York Yankees | |||
MLB statistics | |||
Batting average | .325 | ||
Hits | 2,214 | ||
Home runs | 361 | ||
Runs batted in | 1,537 | ||
Teams | |||
Career highlights and awards | |||
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Member of the National | |||
Baseball Hall of Fame | |||
Inducted | 1955 | ||
Vote | 88.84% (third ballot) |
Joseph Paul "Joe" DiMaggio (November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999), nicknamed "Joltin' Joe" and "The Yankee Clipper", was an American Major League Baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career for the New York Yankees. He is perhaps best known for his 56-game hitting streak (May 15 – July 16, 1941), a record that still stands.
DiMaggio was a three-time MVP winner and an All-Star in each of his 13 seasons. During his tenure with the Yankees, the club won ten American League pennants and nine World Series championships.
At the time of his retirement, he ranked fifth in career home runs (361) and sixth in career slugging percentage (.579). He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955, and was voted the sport's greatest living player in a poll taken during the baseball centennial year of 1969.
His brothers Vince (1912–1986) and Dom (1917–2009) also were major league center fielders.
DiMaggio was born on November 25, 1914 in Martinez, California, the eighth of nine children born to Sicilian immigrants Giuseppe (1872–1949) and Rosalia (Mercurio) (1878–1951) DiMaggio. He was named Paolo after his father Giuseppe's favorite saint, Saint Paul. The family moved to nearby San Francisco when Joe was a year old.
Giuseppe was a fisherman, as were generations of DiMaggios before him. According to statements from Joe's brother, Tom, to biographer Maury Allen, Rosalia's father wrote to her with the advice that Giuseppe could earn a better living in California than in their native Isola delle Femmine, a northwestern Sicilian village in the province of Palermo.