American baseball center fielder, nicknamed “Joltin’ Joe” and “The Yankee Clipper,” considered one of the greatest outfielders in baseball history. He played in 10 World Series and 11 major league All-star games. His 56-game winning streak endures as one of the most remarkable records in baseball. DiMaggio played his entire 13-year career in Major League Baseball for the New York Yankees (1936–1942, 1946–1951). He came to the Yankees in 1936 as a gawky, toothy high school dropout, but by the time he left the game, retiring on 12 December 1951, he had become baseball’s exemplar of grace.

The eighth of nine kids born to a fisherman and a housewife, he was a baby when the family moved to San Francisco. He was so tongue-tied that his sisters thought him slow-witted, and in school, he never read and never said a word. At 16, he simply stopped going to school. He sold papers, making two or three bucks on a good day which he took home. Jobs were not plentiful in the early ’30s and he worked where he could get it.. He never fished, stringently avoiding his father’s life.
But he could play ball; how he could smack that ball! By 18, he had a contract with the San Francisco Seals, minor league ball before becoming a rookie with the New York Yankees, making his debut on 3 May 1936. By the time he was 21, he was a star, the toast of New York and a hero to Italian-Americans across the country. He bought his family a big new house and invested in a restaurant that his older brother could run. Over the next 15 years he led the Yanks to nine world championships, winning three Most Valuable Player awards and setting one of baseball’s most enduring records with an epic 56-game hitting streak that started on 15 May 1941.
A shy, private man, he seldom gave interviews, projecting an aloof, imperial dignity. His group of personal friends saw him as kind and gentle, one who was warm and sincere but who took to strangers not at all. A consummate gentleman on and off the field, DiMaggio preferred to keep his personal life quiet. For reasons that remain obscure, he and his only child, Joe III, were long estranged, though he was devoted to Joe III’s two daughters and doted on his four great-grandkids.
DiMaggio married minor actress Dorothy Arnold on 19 November 1939; one son before they divorced in 1944. He met Marilyn Monroe on a blind date in 1952, set up by a PR team. He never made it home that night; by her account, they were terrific in bed. Joe was no stranger to women, holding a track record with blonde showgirls. With a fascinated world watching, they married at San Francisco’s city hall on 14 January 1954. It was off-key from day one, with two superstars on different tracks, different centers, different values. They fought and screamed, she drank, he hit her. It lasted 274 days before Monroe filed for divorce on 27 October 1954. Though they were painfully mismatched, they remained friends with an increasing closeness up to Monroe’s death on 5 August 1962. He never remarried and kept fresh flowers on her grave for 20 years.
After leaving pro-ball, Joltin’ Joe appeared at celebrity gold tournaments and autograph signings, for a good fee. He appeared regularly without charge at the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Florida, raising millions for the facility. He loved kids. He was given an honorary doctorate degree from Columbia University in June 1990.
At the age of 84, DiMaggio had problems recovering from his October lung cancer surgery. A chain-smoker, he suffered chronic stomach ulcers. On 12 December 1998, he received last rites in the hospital in Hollywood, Florida, near his home, as he battled infectious pneumonia. On 18 January 1999, he was allowed to leave the hospital after a 99-day stay.
The fabled “Yankee Clipper” died after a long battle with lung cancer on 8 March 1999, shortly after midnight at his home in Hollywood, Florida. He left as a legend in his own time, a star and a teammate of whom there was never a bad word spoken.
Link to Wikipedia biography