Dimaggio: An Illustrated Life
by Glenn Stout, Dick Johnson
47 Used! | New! from $0.01 (as of 12/31/2012 12:51 PST)
DiMaggio, Joe
- Rank: #601942 in Books
- Published on: 1995-10
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 272 pages
As the New York Yankees' star centerfielder from 1936 to 1951, Joe DiMaggio is enshrined in America's memory as the epitome in sports of grace, dignity, and that ineffable quality called "class." But his career after retirement, starting with his nine-month marriage to Marilyn Monroe, was far less auspicious. Writers like Gay Talese and Richard Ben Cramer have painted the private DiMaggio as cruel or self-centered. Now, Jerome Charyn restores the image of this American icon, looking at DiMaggio's life in a more sympathetic light.
DiMaggio was a man of extremes, superbly talented on the field but privately insecure, passive, and dysfunctional. He never understood that for Monroe, on her own complex and tragic journey, marriage was a career move; he remained passionately committed to her throughout his life. He allowed himself to be turned into a sports memorabilia money machine. In the end, unable to define any role for himself other than "Greatest Living Ballplayer," he became trapped in "a horrible kind of minutia." But where others have seen little that was human behind that minutia, Charyn in Joe DiMaggio presents the tragedy of one of American sports' greatest figures.Streak vividly and poignantly tells the story of "Joltin' Joe" DiMaggio's legendary fifty-six-game hitting streak and the last golden summer of baseball before America was engulfed by the maelstrom of the Second World War. That long-lost summer also witnessed other unforgettable events: Ted Williams's quest to bat 400 and Lefty Grove's pursuit of his three-hundredth victory; a sizzling, epic race between the Dodgers and the Cardinals for the National League pennant; and Mickey Owen's infamous passed ball in the fourth game of the World Series.
Featuring complete box scores for each game, Streak showcases DiMaggio's crowning achievement, commemorates a baseball season like no other, and invites us to an America in the last moments of its innocence.
At the start of the 1941 baseball season, neither Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees nor Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox were beloved by baseball fans. But that all changed when Joe started a 56-game hitting streak and Ted's batting average rose to over .400. Despite numerous challenges along the way-Joe had his bat stolen by an overeager fan and Ted's batting average dipped to .3995 on the last day of the season-the records set by "Joltin' Joe" and "The Splendid Splinter" have yet to be broken.
New York Times bestselling author of the Sluggers series (with Loren Long), Phil Bildner has written an accessible tribute to two of baseball's greatest heroes. Packed with fun facts and statistics for eager fans to pore over, this book is sure to be a home run!
Joe DiMaggio was a star centerfielder for fifteen years, helping the Yankees win the pennant in his rookie year. He played in ten World Series and in eleven All-Star Games. The image of American achievement and dignity, DiMaggio isn't just a sports legend, he is a true American hero.
"This is the book for the serious DiMaggio and sports-as-culture buff. [Moore] . . . has sifted throught most of what has been written and rumored about the Yankee Clipper in newspapers, magazines, books and even songs. The narrative portion--there's also a bibliography and DiMaggio's baseball stats--is divided into two sections: DiMaggio's life on and off the field, and his evolving stature as a mythic figure. All rendered in sensitive, but refreshingly unsentimental prose." USA Today "Anyone serious about building an excellent baseball library or interested in the role of sports in American society should get a copy of this book. . . . An excellent and well-researched book." The Sporting News
Joe DiMaggio and his brothers Dom and Vince were members of a tightly-knit Italian family. Their father, an immigrant from Sicily, intended for all of his sons to follow in his fisherman footsteps, but Vince, Joe, and Dom broke from family tradition and achieved everlasting fame as professional baseball players. In Joltin' Joe, Vince, and the Little Professor, Michael J. Pellowski follows the three siblings through their early days growing up in California, their all-star baseball careers, and their lives outside the ballpark. It includes career stats and results for each brother, how they fared face-to-face, and their combined statistics. The first book to collectively explore the DiMaggio brothers’ lives, relationships, and careers, it is an inspiring story of baseball, family, determination, and ultimate success.
Winner of the 2011 CASEY Award from Spitball Magazine Seventy baseball seasons ago, on a May afternoon at Yankee Stadium, Joe DiMaggio lined a hard single to leftfield. It was the quiet beginning to the most resonant baseball achievement of all time. Starting that day, the vaunted Yankee centerfielder kept on hitting-at least one hit in game after game after game.
In the summer of 1941, as Nazi forces moved relentlessly across Europe and young American men were drafted by the millions, it seemed only a matter of time before the U.S. went to war. The nation was apprehensive. Yet for two months in that tense summer, America was captivated by DiMaggio's astonishing hitting streak. In 56, Kostya Kennedy tells the remarkable story of how the streak found its way into countless lives, from the Italian kitchens of Newark to the playgrounds of Queens to the San Francisco streets of North Beach; from the Oval Office of FDR to the Upper West Side apartment where Joe's first wife, Dorothy, the movie starlet, was expecting a child. In this crisp, evocative narrative Joe DiMaggio emerges in a previously unseen light, a 26-year-old on the cusp of becoming an icon. He comes alive-a driven ballplayer, a mercurial star and a conflicted husband-as the tension and the scrutiny upon him build with each passing day.
DiMaggio's achievement lives on as the greatest of sports records. Alongside the story of DiMaggio's dramatic quest, Kennedy deftly examines the peculiar nature of hitting streaks and with an incisive, modern-day perspective gets inside the number itself, as its sheer improbability heightens both the math and the magic of 56 games in a row.