The Baseball Legend And American Icon Was 84
By George Stahl
NEW YORK (AQB)--Joe DiMaggio, a baseball legend and American cultural icon, died at his home shortly after midnight Monday, his lawyer said. The ''Yankee Clipper'' was 84.
In 13 seasons with the Yankees, DiMaggio amassed 361 home runs and 1,537 RBI but is most remembered for his unprecedented and unmatched 56-game hitting streak in 1941. The three-time Most Valuable Player missed three years in his prime (1943-45) because of World War II.
DiMaggio played for 10 pennant winners and nine World Series champions and, in 1969, was voted the "the greatest living player."
[Click here to see DiMaggio's career stats.]
Yet DiMaggio's exceptional numbers don't account fully for his almost legendary place on the American cultural landscape. The son of Italian immigrants was memorialized in Ernest Hemingway's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Old Man and the Sea.
"I would like to take the great DiMaggio fishing," the ancient Cuban fisherman says in Hemingway's book. "They say his father was a fisherman. Maybe he was as poor as we are and would understand."
In 1954, three years after he retired, DiMaggio married Marilyn Monroe, the most famous movie actress of the time. The marriage lasted only 10 months, but remains one of the most talked-about unions in the 20th century.
DiMaggio also was remembered in the classic 1960s song about the loss of heroes - Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson" from the movie The Graduate.
"Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you. What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson? Joltin' Joe has left and gone away."
DiMaggio underwent lung cancer surgery in October and battled a series of complications for weeks afterward. DiMaggio's body will be flown to Northern California for burial in his home town of San Francisco.
| To read more about DiMaggio, click on any of the following: | |||
| CBS Sportsline | Chicago Tribune | CNN/SI | ESPN |
| Fox Sports | Los Angeles Times | MSNBC | New York Times |
| San Fran Chronicle | Sporting News | USA Today | Yankees.com |
| A&E's
Biography will feature Joe DiMaggio at 8 p.m. EST ESPN will have 1-hour DiMaggio special at 9 p.m. (re-air midnight ESPN2) MSNBC will remember the Yankee Clipper on Time & Again at 6 p.m. EST |
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The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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