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| Home >> News >> Joe DiMaggio Autograph & More |
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| 04/04/2011 |
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| Joe DiMaggio Autograph & More |
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Also known as “Joltin’ Joe” and the “Yankee Clipper,” DiMaggio was a three-time MVP
and 13-time All-Star. He helped lead the New York Yankees to win ten pennants and
nine world championships. A 1969 poll coinciding with the centennial of professional
baseball voted DiMaggio the sport’s greatest living player.
More than just a sports hero, DiMaggio was among the most cherished icons of popular
culture and known as much for his signature style and grace as for his athletic prowess.
He was born Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio in Martinez, California on November 25, 1914. "Giuseppe" (Joseph) was for his father; "Paolo" (Paul) for St. Paul, his father's favorite saint. He was the fourth son and the eighth child born to Giuseppe and Rosalie DiMaggio. The couple immigrated to America in 1898 from Sicily and moved to North Beach, a heavily Italian neighborhood in San Francisco when Joe was a year old.
Giuseppe, the father, was a fisherman, as were generations of DiMaggio’s before him. He hoped all five of his sons would follow his footsteps. The two oldest sons, Tom and Michael, joined their father as fishermen but, Joe had no desire to follow in his father’s chosen career. As Joe recalled, he would do anything to get out of cleaning his father's boat as the smell of dead fish made him sick to his stomach. This earned him Giuseppe's ire, who called him "lazy" and "good for nothing.”
Instead of fishing, Joe followed his older brother Vince, along with his younger brother Dominic onto the sandlot baseball fields of San Francisco. It was only after Joe became the sensation of the Pacific Coast League that Joe’s father was finally won over.
n the spring of 1930, a 16 year old Joe DiMaggio had already dropped out of Galileo High school in San Francisco. He tried many an odd jobs including fishing, which he later described as “a lousy way to make a living.” He began spending more and more time playing baseball at the diary-wagon parking lot, an open space where milk drivers parked their horses and wagons, near San Francisco’s fisherman’s wharf. "We used rocks for bases," DiMaggio told a biographer, "and it was quite a scramble among about 20 of us kids to scrape up a nickel to buy a roll of bicycle tape to patch up the ball each day."
Joe first suited up for a team sponsored by a local olive-oil distributor named Rossi. Joe helped Rossi win the championship with two home runs in a game. DiMaggio received two baseballs and $ 16 worth of merchandise for his play.
In March of 1932, Vince, Joe’s older brother made the roster of the city’s minor league team, the SF Seals. Later that year, a shortstop was needed, and Vince recommended his younger brother. It was then that Joe made his professional debut, playing in 3 games to finish out the 1932 season. The following year, 1933, his first full year with the Seals, Joe batted .340 with 169 RBI’s and 28 home runs. It turned out that Joe wasn’t a shortstop, but boy could he play baseball. He had found a career. In a sure sign of things to come, Joe had an incredible 61 game hitting streak in his first full professional season.. Scouts flocked to see DiMaggio as he was beginning to make a national name for himself.
In November of 1934, the Seals owner, Charlie Graham sold the rights to Joe DiMaggio to the NY Yankees for $25,000 dollars and five players. A knee injury kept Joe from reporting to the Yankees that year, forcing him to play for the Seals for one final year. Joe finished his minor league career with an impressive .398 batting average, 154 RBI’s and 34 home runs.
13 year career with the Yankees
• 9 world championships
• 10 American league Pennants
• 3 MVP awards 1939, 1941, 1947
• 56 game hitting streak, major league record
• Career batting average .325
• Career home runs 361, only struck out 369 times
• Won two batting titles, .381 in 1939 and .352 in 1940
• Appeared in 11 All-Star Games
• Elected to the HOF 1955
• Voted greatest living player 1969, Centennial poll of sportswriters More information can be found at
http://www.joedimaggio.com/BaseballCareer.php?n=&n=2&lspg=4
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