Joe DiMaggio, the "Yankee Clipper", and "Joltin' Joe", began playing for the New York Yankees in 1936. In 1941, Joe DiMaggio was on a 56 game hitting streak that had U.S. baseball fans going crazy. While WW II put a dent in his career, he came back after the war and eventually retired in 1951 as the highest paid and greatest baseball player of them all. He owned a restaurant in San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf and   enjoyed fishing. He began a nearly two year courtship of M.M. in March, 1952.