Joe DiMaggio was a first-generation Italian kid, working the shores of Fisherman’s Wharf in Northern San Francisco from dawn to dusk with his four brothers. Due to difficult economic conditions, Joe had to help his fisherman father, but from an early age, his obsession was baseball. It was this passion that marked the career of this Sicilian-born young man who would later be called “the greatest living baseball player.”

When he took the field for the Yankees in 1936, he was greeted by 25,000 tricolor flags hoisted by his countrymen. On the day of his passing in 1999, President Bill Clinton voiced these defining, memorable words to honor the venerable Joe DiMaggio: “This son of Italian immigrants gave every American something to believe in. He became the very symbol of American grace, power and skill.”