Joe DiMaggio

Joseph Paul DiMaggio (born Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio; November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999), nicknamed "Joltin' Joe", "the Yankee Clipper", and "Joe D." , was an American baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career in Major League Baseball for the New York Yankees. He is widely considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time and is best known for setting the record for the longest hitting streak in baseball (56 games from May 15 – July 16, 1941), which still stands today. He was a three-time American League (AL) Most Valuable Player Award winner and an All-Star in each of his 13 seasons. During his tenure with the Yankees, the club won ten American League pennants and nine World Series championships.

His nine career World Series rings are second only to fellow Yankee Yogi Berra, who won ten. At the time of his retirement after the 1951 season, he ranked fifth in career home runs (361) and sixth in career slugging percentage (. 579). 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. His brothers Vince (1912–1986) and Dom (1917–2009) were also major league center fielders.

He enlisted in the U. S. Army Air Forces on February 17, 1943, rising to the rank of sergeant.