Joe DiMaggio

The Yankees paid $25,000 for Joe DiMaggio. Twenty-five grand and five minor leaguers -- a quarter of what they'd spent on Babe Ruth. He arrived with a bum knee, a 61-game hitting streak in the Pacific Coast League, and the quiet confidence of a kid who'd grown up hating the smell of his father's fishing boats on San Francisco Bay. He'd go on to win nine World Series rings, three MVP awards, and own the most untouchable record in American sports -- all while striking out fewer times than he walked.

That's not a typo. In 1,736 games as a New York Yankee, Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio Jr. struck out 369 times and walked 790. The man simply didn't miss.

The Fisherman's Son

DiMaggio didn't come from baseball money -- he came from crab boats. His father Giuseppe Sr. fished the waters off North Beach, and young Joe was supposed to follow him onto the Pacific. He refused. The eighth of nine children (three of whom played professional ball), DiMaggio joined the San Francisco Seals at seventeen and hit .340 in his first partial season.

Then came 1934 -- and the moment that almost erased everything. DiMaggio tore cartilage in his left knee stepping out of a taxi. Every major league scout backed off. Every scout except Bill Essick, the Yankees' man on the West Coast, who watched DiMaggio move on the bad knee and reported back that the kid still moved like a center fielder. Essick later called it the best evaluation he ever made. He wasn't wrong.

In Pinstripes

DiMaggio's 1936 debut set the tone -- a triple and two singles against the Browns, and the Yankees didn't stop winning for four straight Octobers. He hit .381 in 1939 (the highest mark of his career), clubbed a career-high 46 home runs in 1937, and carried himself with a composure that made the dugout feel calmer just because he was in it.

What the numbers don't capture is the defense. DiMaggio patrolled a center field at the old Stadium that stretched nearly 490 feet at its deepest -- a distance that would make modern outfielders file a grievance -- and he covered it without ever appearing to hurry. Thirteen seasons, 30 outfield errors. He made the impossible look administrative.

The Streak

On May 15, 1941, DiMaggio singled off Edgar Smith of the White Sox. Nobody wrote it down as the beginning of anything. Fifty-six games later, he'd produced the most unbreakable record in baseball -- a streak so consuming that Les Brown's band wrote a song about it while it was still happening (one of the few times a pop song tracked a sporting event in real time).

The streak died on July 17 in Cleveland. Third baseman Ken Keltner -- who'd set up deeper than usual, specifically to counter DiMaggio's line drives -- made two backhanded grabs that belong in a time capsule, and shortstop Lou Boudreau fielded a bad-hop grounder in the eighth to kill the last chance. 67,468 fans watched the stadium go quiet. DiMaggio then hit safely in the next 16 straight games, because of course he did.

The Years He Lost

DiMaggio enlisted in the Army Air Forces in February 1943. He could've taken a cushy Navy assignment and kept playing ball. He didn't. He missed three full seasons -- ages 28, 29, and 30 -- the years every hitter would trade almost anything to get back. Conservative projections add roughly 75-100 home runs and push his career WAR past 100. He also developed a stomach ulcer that followed him for the rest of his playing days.

The return wasn't smooth. Doctors missed a heel spur for nearly two full seasons (DiMaggio later said his vision went blurry when he put weight on the foot). But when he came back from surgery in June 1949, he came back swinging -- 4 home runs and 9 RBI in a three-game sweep at Fenway against Ted Williams and the Red Sox. The beat writers couldn't stop writing about it for weeks.

Key Moments

Walking Away

By 1951, DiMaggio couldn't get to inside fastballs anymore. He hit .263 -- the only time he dropped below .290 -- and a 19-year-old named Mickey Mantle was already roaming center field. DiMaggio recognized his successor, though the two were never close. (DiMaggio was famously cold to young players, and Mantle found the Clipper intimidating -- which, frankly, seems appropriate.)

He retired that December with a line that was pure DiMaggio: "When baseball is no longer fun, it's no longer a game." He walked away on his terms, with nine rings and his dignity intact.

In later years, DiMaggio insisted on being introduced at every public appearance as "The Greatest Living Player" -- a clause he actually negotiated into his contracts. It drove Willie Mays's supporters crazy. But DiMaggio didn't care about consensus. He cared about the standard he'd set, and the kid in the bleachers who might be seeing him for the first time.