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Sports Profile:
Joe DiMaggio
Email:
Harvey
Frommer
Website: Harvey Frommer on
Sports and
Culture
Harvey Frommer is the author of
33 sports books, including The
New York Yankee Encyclopedia,
Shoeless Joe and Ragtime
Baseball, Growing Up Baseball and
Red Sox Vs. Yankees - The Rivalry
with Frederic J. Frommer, Rickey
and Robinson: The Men Who Broke
Baseball's Color Line, and A
Yankee Century: A Celebration of
the First Hundred Years of
Baseball's Greatest Team.
"I'd
like to thank the good Lord for
making me a Yankee."- Joe
DiMaggio
"There was an
aura about him." Phil Rizzuto
said.
"Joe didn't sweat," veteran
sportswriter Red Foley said, "he
perspired."
The date was
March 17, 1936.
In his first game
with the Yankees, Joe DiMaggio
rapped our four hits as New York
lost to the St. Louis Cardinals
in a spring training exhibition
game. That was how he started -
and he never let up.
He was born
Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio on
November 25, 1914 in Martinez,
California, one of nine children
of Rosalie and Giuseppe DiMaggio,
a crab fisherman father, an
émigré from Sicily.
It was all planned for Joe to
become a fisherman like
him.
But his real
passion was playing baseball, a
game his father called "a bum's
game." On the sandlots of San
Francisco, the young DiMaggio
developed baseball skills by
hitting balls with a broken oar
from a fishing boat. The kids he
played with called him "Long
Legs," in Italian. He was always
tall for his age.
With the San
Francisco Seals of the Pacific
Coast League in 1933, DiMag hit
safely in 61 straight games. The
next year, playing shortstop, he
batted .341, but injured his
knee. Yankee scouts Joe Devine
and Bill Essick downplayed the
injury in their reports to
General Manager Ed Barrow. "Don't
back off because of the kid's
knee," Essick recommended. "He'll
be all right.
"Getting him,"
George Weiss said on many
occasions," was the greatest
thing I ever did for the
Yankees." The deal contained the
clause that DiMaggio be allowed
to play one more season for the
Seals. Did he play! He played and
batted .398, recorded 270 hits,
and drove in 154 runs.
In 1936,
permission was granted for DiMag
to drive cross-country with
fellow San Franciscans Tony
Lazzeri and Frank Crosetti to the
Yankee spring training camp in
Florida. Lazzeri turned to
DiMaggio after the trio had
concluded one day of driving and
asked: "Would you like to take
over and drive?"
"I don't drive."
It was reported that those were
the only words uttered by DiMag
in that 3-day cross-country
trek.
"Joe DiMaggio was
a guy who didn't graduate from
high school," noted Jerry
Coleman. "He went to about the
10th grade. He was totally
insecure, and consequently his
quietness came from his saying
nothing rather than saying
something that would make him
look bad."
On
March 2, 1936 DiMaggio finally
reported to spring training. Red
Ruffing greeted him with "So
you're the great
DiMaggio?"
He played in his
first major league game on May 3,
1936, at Yankee Stadium against
the St. Louis Browns. In his
first time at bat, he hit the
second pitch into left field for
a single. He had another single
and then a triple to left field.
Joe DiMaggio played 138 games in
his rookie season, hit .323, with
29 home runs and 125 runs batted
in.
He would step
into the batter's box and stub
his right toe into the dirt in
back of his left heel. It was
almost a dance step. His feet
were spaced approximately four
feet apart, with the weight of
his frame on his left leg. Erect,
almost in a military position,
Joe Dee would hold his bat at the
end and poise it on his right
shoulder - a rifle at the ready.
He would peer at the pitcher from
deep in the batter's box with a
stance that almost crowded the
plate. He was ready.
DiMag held the
bat back, and didn't stride very
much, maybe four five inches,"
noted Monte Irvin.
"I watched that.
I became a pretty good hitter
because I watched Joe. In later
years I told him that I copied
him."
In DiMaggio's
first four seasons (1936-39), the
Yankees not only won four
straight World Series but they
also lost only a total of three
Series games.
"Joe was the
complete player in everything he
did," said his former manager Joe
McCarthy. "They'd hit the ball to
center field and Joe would
stretch out those long legs of
his and run the ball down. He
never made a mistake on the bases
and in Yankee Stadium, a tough
park for a right-hander, he was a
great hitter, one of the
best."
Secure in his
feeling that he was the greatest
baseball player of his time, Joe
DiMaggio was fiercely concerned
about his public image. Being
silly in public was not for him.
His shoes were always shined, all
his buttons were always buttoned,
and his impeccably tailored
clothes fit seamlessly. DiMaggio
led the major leagues in room
service. On road trips, no one
ate alone in his hotel room as
often as he did. It all fit
DiMaggio's personality, which
seemed placid, disciplined,
calm.
Only those in the
Yankee clubhouse saw the legs
scraped and raw from hard slides
or diving catches. Only those in
the clubhouse saw him sit for a
half hour or more in front of his
locker after the Yankees had lost
or when he thought he had played
beneath his exceptionally high
standards.
In 1941, the
Yankee Clipper put together his
season of seasons. He batted
.351, paced the American League
with 125 RBIs, hit 30 home runs.
He also struck out just 13 times.
But the centerpiece of that
marvelous season was DiMaggio's
56-game hitting streak, which was
a main reason for his winning the
MVP award, narrowly edging out
Ted Williams who batted
.406.
Military service
and injuries limited DiMaggio to
just 13 years in pinstripes. But
it was a time the Yanks won 10
pennants and 9 world
championships.
On Joe DiMaggio
Day in 1949 the Yankee Clipper
said: "When I was in San
Francisco, Lefty O'Doul told me:
'Joe, don't let the big city
scare you. New York is the
friendliest town in the world.'
This day proves it. I want to
thank my fans, my friends, my
manager Casey Stengel; my
teammates, the gamest,
fightingest bunch of guys that
ever lived. And I want to thank
the good Lord for making me a
Yankee."
DiMaggio won
three MVP awards, two batting
titles, was named to the All-Star
team every season he played,
slammed 361 career homers, was
struck out just 369 times,
averaged 118 RBIs and had a .325
lifetime batting average. The
Yankee Clipper homered once every
18.9 at bats, his homer to hit
ratio was 1 to 6.13. He won home
run titles 11 years apart, 1937
and 1948, slugging percentage
titles 13 years apart 1937 and
1950.
Those
statistics," his teammate Eddie
Lopat said,"don't even tell half
the story. What he meant to the
Yankees, you'll never find in the
statistics. He was the real
leader of our team. He was the
best."
In 1951, the man
they called the Yankee Clipper,
retired at age 36. Management
attempted to get him to perform
in pinstripes for one more
season. But he had too much
pride, and too much pain.
"I no longer have
it." DiMaggio said. "I can no
longer produce for my club, my
manager, my teammates and my
fans. It has become a chore for
me to play... When baseball is no
longer fun, it's no longer a
game."
Joseph Paul
DiMaggio left behind the imagery
of a player who moved about in
the vast centerfield of Yankee
Stadium with a poetical grace. He
was one who played when he was
fatigued, when he was hurt, when
it mattered a great deal, and
when it didn't matter at all. "I
was out there to play and give it
all I had all the time," he
said.
"Joe could do
more things just a little better
than others,'' former Yankee
pitcher Jim Turner recalled." He
was a superb athlete. So
graceful, both at bat and in the
field. It would be hard to match
him for genuine dignity. He
probably was the greatest team
player in the history of the
game.''
Elected to the
Hall of Fame in 1955, Joe
DiMaggio passed away on March 8,
1999 at age 84.
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