The greatest sports heroes of the thirties were Jesse Owens and Joe DiMaggio.  But, they were also a two of the greatest athletes of all times.  Jesse and Joe changed the world of sports.

Jesse Owens
     On September 12, 1913, James Cleveland Owens was born.  He was the seventh of eleven children.  Early in his life, Jesse learned what hard work meant.  His family was desperately poor, so Jesse spent a lot of his child life picking cotton in the fields.  His parents were share croppers, or farmers who rented their land in exchange for a share of the crop.
     Jesse and his family eventually moved to Cleveland, Ohio.  Jesse's nickname was always J.C., for James Cleveland, but when he got to Ohio everybody mistook J.C., for Jesse.  The name stuck.  So, Jesse grew up in Cleveland, Ohio as a hard working young man with ten brothers and sisters.  Nobody ever dreamed of him becoming one of the greatest athletes of all time.  But they were wrong.
     In high school, Jesse ran on the school's track team.  It was then, that he was noted as a great athlete, at least in his home town.  Since Jesse went to a small school, nobody noticed him.  But, Jesse was definitely a good runner.  He broke records almost every time he raced.  Eventually someone was bound to notice this kid's spectacular talent.  Obviously, someone did.
     After trying his hardest all through his life, Jesse's dream came true.  He made it to the Olympics!  Jesse competed as a track and field contestant in the 1936 Olympics.  Being an African-American athlete, he proved Adolf Hitler wrong in saying that all Jews and blacks would fail.  Jesse won four gold medals!  But, what made his achievement even greater was that he had come through some tough years as a child, but still made his dream come true.  Jesse Owens is definitely one of the greatest athletes of all time.

Joe DiMaggio
     One of the greatest baseball players of all times was Joe DiMaggio.  He was born on November 5, 1914 in Martinez, California.  He was the eighth of nine children.  He grew up in a nice home, with a loving and caring family.  Growing up, sports was evidentally one of the DiMaggio family's greatest interests.  Two of Joe's brothers, Dom and Vince, both played major league baseball.
     In 1936, Joe DiMaggio made his baseball debut with the New York Yankees.  Nobody would of thought that after Babe Ruth retired, the Yankees could be as good as they were with him.  But they were wrong.  With the addition of DiMaggio, and other great players such as Lou Gerigh, the New York Yankees dominated the game of baseball once again.
I'm sure that everybody would agree that Joe DiMaggio was a great player just by looking at his career statistics and accomplishments.  He had 361 homeruns and 1,537 RBI's (runs batted in) in his career. He also had only 369 strikeouts.  That's a very low amount for somebody who played for 13 seasons.  DiMaggio also played on ten world series teams, winning nine of them.  He won three MVP Awards and two American Batting Titles.  Joe also had a fifty-six game hitting steak, meaning he got at least one hit in 56 consecutive games!  That is an amazing record that stills stands today.  All of these stats and more definitely show that Joe DiMaggio was one of the best athletes ever to play the game of baseball.
     I hope you enjoyed the small biography on Jesse Owens and Joe DiMaggio, a couple of the greatest athletes ever.
  

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