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I have always thought, perhaps driven by my love for the Italian American community and the history of its achievements, that the greatest American athlete of all time is Joe DiMaggio, who belonged to that community. There is obviously no official ranking, everybody has their own, mine sees there at the top a very great Italian American. Someone wh...

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As you may know, Italy has played the World Baseball Classic with a national team composed mainly of Italian American players. If the WBC had existed say roughly 75 years, we would have been a kind of DREAM TEAM. I looked a little bit at all those faces of Italians who are no longer there. I saw the Italy of 1948 and told about it on Che Palle! blo...

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The Italian American Baseball Foundation is partnering with the Columbus Citizens Foundation to present the Joe DiMaggio Award. This year’s honorees will be Baseball Hall of Famer and Team Italy Manager Mike Piazza and Lou Tallarini, President of Real Property Investors and a former CCF President and Chairman. Join us on April 4 at the CCF Townhous...

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On the occasion of the visit to Isola delle Femmine, in the province of Palermo, Sicily, of a delegation of Italian-American citizens from Pittsburg and Martinez (California), led by the vice president of Italian American Club of Pittsburg, CA, Vince Ferrante, the Scala - Aiello family, through their little niece Ysabel Scala, donated to the Joe Di...

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In today's world, language is something extremely delicate. Whether it is good or bad, we gladly leave it to the readers' judgment. What is certain is that sensitivity is definitely higher than it used to be. Italian Americans have always been the object of nicknames and monikers that have never been positive, affectionate or friendly, as it could...

2010

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, more than 600,000 Italian Americans and Italian immigrants found themselves caught in a xenophobic dragnet that involved mass surveillance, unprecedented harassment and, in some cases, secret internment. After years of isolationism, America was suddenly thrust into World War II, and at the time, the federal govern...

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The image does not compute. It ought to come with an Error 404 message. Or maybe an Error 5 message, because that’s the number on the jersey. And while that number and the face of the man wearing it are familiar, nothing else about this picture is recognizable. That’s Joe DiMaggio, all right. The hair is grayer and the face a little more weat...

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Baseball legend Joe DiMaggio married Hollywood actress Marilyn Monroe on January 14, 1954. They were married in Saints Peter and Paul Church in the North Beach section of San Francisco, where the Yankee Clipper lived for many years as a youngster, with his Sicilian family.  Monroe and DiMaggio constantly fought while on their honeymoon in Japan. Wh...

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Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Woo, woo, woo. What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson? Joltin’ Joe has left and gone away. Hey, hey, hey.” Simon & Garfunkel sang those words more than half a century ago, and DiMaggio died in 1999. But the words have taken on a literal meaning again – as a statue of Joltin’ Joe...

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What was taken down can be PUT BACK UP. What was destroyed can be REBUILT. We can start the healing process now with our Italian American leaders doing what's right for our Little Italy, by returning the Joe DiMaggio statue to its dedicated Piazza on Taylor and Bishop, that's been desolate for over 2 1/2 years now. The last thing Chicago's Little I...

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