Joe Dimaggio

This is the life story of Joe DiMaggio, including his first game with the New York Yankees in the 1930s, his marriage to Marilyn Monroe & his rise to hero status. Richard Ben Cramer tells of the ways in which fame can both build & destroy.

Examines the life of the baseball player in a new light, as a man who took his marriage to Marilyn Monroe very seriously long after their divorce, and had trouble finding a new role for himself during his retirement from the sport.

At both the plate and in the field, Joe DiMaggio was one of baseball's most graceful athletes. During his thirteen seasons with the New York Yankees, he played in ten World Series and won nine world championships. For his career, he was a two-time batting champion, three-time Most Valuable Player, hit 361 home runs, and maintained a .325 batting average. His fifty-six-consecutive-game batting streak in 1941 has yet to be broken. DiMaggio's baseball career began in 1932 when he filled in at shortstop at midseason for a minor league team. In 1934 he became the property of the New York Yankees, which marked the beginning of his road toward greatness in the nation's most famous city on one of the most hallowed fields in the sport. Off the field, his life was marked by a famous marriage to and divorce from Marilyn Monroe, a late-1960s popular song, and a somewhat unhappy retirement. On baseball's one hundredth anniversary in 1969, he was voted the greatest living player of the game, and the Yankees erected a plaque to him among the memorials to Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. On March 8, 1999, at the age of eighty-four, DiMaggio died after a five-month battle with cancer. In I Remember Joe DiMaggio, dozens of the great ballplayer's contemporaries, teammates, coaches, fans, friends, and relatives recall their favorite memories and anecdotes of this man who became an icon of America. It is a warm, entertaining, and inspiring book about a man whose fame has been the stuff of legend for more than half a century.

A biography emphasizing the childhood of the baseball legend.

Joe DiMaggio was, at every turn, one man we could look at who made us feel good. In the hard-knuckled thirties, he was the immigrant boy who made it big—and spurred the New York Yankees to a new era of dynasty. He was Broadway Joe, the icon of elegance, the man who wooed and won Marilyn Monroe—the most beautiful girl America could dream up. Joe DiMaggio was a mirror of our best self. And he was also the loneliest hero we ever had. In this groundbreaking biography, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Richard Ben Cramer presents a shocking portrait of a complicated, enigmatic life. The story that DiMaggio never wanted told, tells of his grace—and greed; his dignity, pride—and hidden shame. It is a story that sweeps through the twentieth century, bringing to light not just America's national game, but the birth (and the price) of modern national celebrity.

"Revealing and little-known stories of the great Yankees Hall of Famer from the man who knew him best in the last ten years of his life"--

For use in schools and libraries only. Poems tell the story of Joseph Paul, who was named after baseball great Joe DiMaggio, and his immigrant grandfather, Papa-Angelo, who teaches him about life, family, and baseball.

In 1936, the New York Yankees wanted to test a hot prospect named Joe DiMaggio to see if he was ready for the big leagues. They knew just the ballplayer to call—Satchel Paige, the best pitcher anywhere, black or white. For the game, Paige joined a group of amateur African American players, and they faced off against a team of white major leaguers plus young DiMaggio. The odds were stacked against the less-experienced black team. But Paige's skillful batting and amazing pitching—with his "trouble ball" and "bat dodger"— kept the game close. Would the rookie DiMaggio prove himself as major league player? Or would Paige once again prove his greatness—and the injustice of segregated baseball?