Joseph Paul DiMaggio, born Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio on November 25, 1914, was an American baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career with the New York Yankees.
DiMaggio, nicknamed "Joltin' Joe," "the Yankee Clipper," and "Joe D," is widely regarded as one of the greatest baseball players of all time.
He set the record for the longest hitting streak in baseball, with 56 games from May 15 to July 16, 1941, a record that still stands today.
DiMaggio was a three-time American League Most Valuable Player Award winner and an All-Star in each of his 13 seasons.
During his time with the Yankees, the team won ten American League pennants and nine World Series championships.
DiMaggio's nine career World Series rings are second only to fellow Yankee Yogi Berra, who won ten.
He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955 and was voted the sport's greatest living player in a poll taken during baseball's centennial year of 1969.
DiMaggio's brothers, Vince and Dom, were also major league center fielders.
DiMaggio enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1943 and rose to the rank of sergeant.
He spent most of his military career playing for baseball teams and in exhibition games, and his superiors gave him special privileges due to his prewar fame.
DiMaggio married actress Dorothy Arnold in 1939 and had a son, Joseph Paul DiMaggio Jr., in 1941.
He and actress Marilyn Monroe eloped in 1954, but their marriage was troubled and ended in divorce in 1955.
DiMaggio reentered Monroe's life in 1960 and secured her release from a psychiatric clinic in 1961.
He claimed her body and arranged for her funeral after her death in 1962 and refused to talk about her publicly or otherwise exploit their relationship.
DiMaggio never married again and had a half-dozen red roses delivered to her crypt three times a week for 20 years.
