Personally whenever I think of Joe DeMaggio I think of John Fogerty’s “Centerfield.” We would always listen to this song when we were going skiing for some reason but it just became a family tradition. I didn’t know much about the man, all I knew was that he played baseball because of this song, so I wanted to do some research when I found out he was from the Thirties.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70I4xRbsT4Q&feature=related here is “Centerfield” (from 1985) if anyone wants to listen.
Joseph Paul “Joe” DiMaggio was born November 25, 1914 and died March 8, 1999. He was an Italian American that played center field for the New York Yankees. He made his debut on May 3rd 1936 and stayed there all 13 years of his career. He was a 3-time MVP winner and 13 time all-star which I was amazed to find out that he is the only player to be selected every year he played. In his thirteen year career, the Yankees won ten pennants and nine world championships, so they were definitely one of the sports dynasties of the Thirties. He is perhaps best known for his 56-game hitting streak (May 15–July 16, 1941), which is another record that still stands. DiMaggio was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955.
Baseball in the Thirties took a huge hit financially due to people not having enough money to go to games. But it was able to stay popular on radio, especially the New York Yankees.
One thing I found very interesting about him was that his second, and last, wife was Marilyn Monroe. They got divorced but he was later going to ask her to remarry him. However she died 4 days later so he could not.
I believe that his record will stand for a while to come. A 56 game hitting streak is almost impossible these days. The pitchers are by far more dominant than the pitchers back in the day. No offense to the greats though, but it's safe to say that baseball has evolved to a very competitive sport with elite players.
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