Joe DiMaggio

Joe DiMaggio was an American Major League Baseball outfielder whose 13-season career with the New York Yankees (1936–1942, 1946–1951) produced one of the American baseball legends of the 20th century — including the 56-game hitting streak of 1941, which has stood as the all-time MLB record continuously for over 80 years. He was born Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio on November 25, 1914, in Martinez, California, into an Italian immigrant family. His parents Giuseppe DiMaggio Sr. and Rosalia (née Mercurio) had emigrated from Sicily in 1898.

His professional baseball career began with the Pacific Coast League's San Francisco Seals in 1932 at age 17. He was signed by the New York Yankees in November 1934 (after his three-season Pacific Coast League career produced an 61-game hitting streak in 1933). His Yankees debut came on May 3, 1936, at age 21.

His Yankees career produced nine World Series championships (1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1947, 1949, 1950, 1951), 13 All-Star Game selections, and three American League MVP Awards (1939, 1941, 1947). The 1941 56-game hitting streak — running from May 15 to July 16, 1941 — has been continuously cited as one of the American sports records of the 20th century, with multiple subsequent baseball historians arguing it is the single most-unlikely-to-be-broken record in baseball.

His career was shaped by his three-year US Army Air Forces service during World War II (1943–1945), the 1954 marriage to Marilyn Monroe (which lasted only nine months but produced one of the American celebrity couples of the 1950s), and his continuous post-baseball celebrity-endorsement work. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955. He died on March 8, 1999, at age 84, in Hollywood, Florida.

His name Joe is the English short form of Joseph (from the Hebrew Yosef meaning "may God add"). Joe has been continuously among the most-popular American boys' names for over a century.