"Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio
our nation turns it's lonely eyes to you...
what's that you say, Mrs. Robinson,
Joltin' Joe has left and gone away...hey hey hey...hey hey hey..."
Often called the most graceful man ever to play the field, Joe DiMaggio was not the showman Babe Ruth was, nor the kind, big-hearted open man Lou Gehrig was. While he had a quiet likeableness and quite a following in all of baseball, Joe was unalterably shy. He was also perhaps the greatest centerfielder that ever wore pinstripes.
Joe DiMaggio grew up the second youngest of nine. His father's job as a fisherman provided the family with most of it's income, but as the children grew older, they were expected to do their part earning money as well. Joe's eldest brother, Tom, was in Joe's opinion the best player in the family, but the need of a steady job prevented him from getting into semipro ball. Two of Joe's other brothers, Vince and Dom, made it to the majors along with him. Dom later became a star centerfielder for the Red Sox.
One of the things most often attatched to baseball players is Luck. In his whole life, Joe's only brush with her was that which gave him the skills and grace that helped him to be who he was. His injuries, ranging from an injured knee to sprained tendons, many times kept him out of the line up. But whenever he could play, he would.
For Joe, however, he was only too glad to attribute his success to luck. He once said, "there's an element of luck in any batting streak". He was of course talking about his famous streak of 56 consecutive games with a hit. There was only one questioned call and one bloop hit in the entire string, and after each he hit a home run. In his opinion, that "took the curse off it".
Joe also holds a lesser known record-- fewest strike outs in a season. Not long after the retirement of Babe Ruth and not too soon before the coming of sluggers such as Mays and Mantle, he went an entire season (154 games, give or take a few) only striking out thirteen times. Today, an average player will amass that many after a matter of weeks.
Nothing about the grace or greatness of Joe DiMaggio could ever be captured in statistics, but here they are: DiMaggio finished his career with a .325 lifetime average, two points higher than he earned his Rookie year. He collected 2,214 hits in 6,821 at bats. He had several MVPs, beating out Ted Williams in a year he hit .406, and had a flair for speed even though he was only called on to steal 39 times (he was safe 30 of those times). He finished with 361 home runs, 28 less than his 389 doubles, and no doubt would have had higher totals if he hadn't retired after only 13 seasons. Then why did he? After being plagued by injuries and witnessing the Rookie season of rising star Mickey Mantle, Joe simply felt "he couldn't be Joe DiMaggio anymore."