Phil
Rizzuto, the
sure-handed Hall of Fame Yankees shortstop
nicknamed the Scooter who extended his Yankee life as a popular, even beloved,
broadcaster, punctuating his game calls with birthday wishes to fans and
exclamations of "Holy cow!" died Monday night. He was 89.
The cause was
pneumonia, his daughter Patricia said yesterday. Rizzuto, who had been in
declining health for several years, died at a residential facility in
Monday was the
12th anniversary of the death of Rizzutos teammate, Mickey Mantle.
Rizzuto joined
the Yankees in 1941 and played 13 seasons (he missed three while in the Navy
during World War II) until 1956. His departure was abrupt. No longer willing to
carry an aging, seldom-used infielder, the Yankees cut him on Old-Timers
Day. Soon after, he began calling Yankee games for WPIX-TV Channel 11 and
remained in that job until 1996.
Rizzuto played an
integral role on the dynastic Yankees before and after World War II. He was a
masterly bunter and defensive specialist for teams that steamrolled to 10
American League pennants and won 8 World Series championships, including 5 in a
row from 1949 to 1953.
He was a
5-foot-6-inch, 150-pound spark plug who did the little things right, from
turning a double play to laying down a sacrifice bunt. He left the slugging to
powerful teammates like Mantle, Joe DiMaggio,
Tommy Henrich, Charlie Keller and Yogi Berra.
I hustled
and got on base and made the double play," Rizzuto said. "Thats
all the Yankees needed in those days"
His career
statistics were not spectacular: a batting average of .273, 38 home runs and
563 runs batted in. But he was named to five American League All-Star teams,
and in his best season, 1950, he batted a career-high .324, drove in 66 runs
and won the A.L.s Most Valuable Player award.
Rizzuto was frequently
compared to other shortstops of his era, like Pee Wee Reese of the Brooklyn
Dodgers and Marty Marion of the St. Louis Cardinals.
But to DiMaggio, his teammate for eight seasons, Rizzuto was the best.
The little
guy in front of me, he made my job easy, said DiMaggio, one of the
games great center fielders. "I didnt
have to pick up so many ground balls."
One of five
children of Rose and Fiore Rizzuto, a construction foreman and trolley
motorman, Philip Francis Rizzuto grew up in Brooklyn and moved to
A major league
career was not foreordained. While attending
When he
became the Yankee manager in 1949, I reminded him of that, but he pretended he didnt remember, Rizzuto said of Stengel. "By
49, I didnt need a shoebox, anyway. The
clubhouse boy at the Stadium shined my Yankee spikes every day."
The Yankees
signed him in 1937 and sent him to their Class D minor league team in
After serving in
the South Pacific, Rizzuto resumed his role as a bulwark of the Yankees
infield, forming superior double-play combinations with second basemen Joe
Gordon and Jerry Coleman (who in the 1960s joined Rizzuto in the broadcast
booth). He also developed into an eccentric - funny, superstitious, afraid
of thunder and the target of teammates pranks.
Two plays in 1951
were emblematic of Rizzutos career.
In the first, Rizzuto,
a right-handed batter, was at the plate facing Bob Lemon of the Cleveland Indians. It was the bottom of the ninth
inning, in the middle of a pennant chase, the score tied at 1-1. DiMaggio was
on third base. Rizzuto took Lemons first pitch, a strike, and argued the
call with the umpire. That gave Rizzuto time to grab his bat from both ends,
the sign to DiMaggio that a squeeze play was on for the next pitch. But
DiMaggio broke early, surprising Rizzuto. Lemon, seeing what was happening,
threw high and behind Rizzuto, to avoid a bunt. But with Joltin
Joe bearing down on him, Rizzuto got his bat up in time to lay down a bunt.
If I didnt bunt, the pitch wouldve
hit me right in the head," Rizzuto said. "I bunted it with both feet
off the ground, but I got it off toward first base."
DiMaggio scored
the winning run. Stengel called it "the greatest play I ever saw."
Later that year,
Game 3 of the World Series against the Giants provided Rizzuto with an enemy he
would fulminate about for the rest of his life.
With one out in
the fifth inning, the Giants Eddie Stanky drew a
walk against the Yankees pitcher Vic Raschi. The
next batter was Alvin Dark, and the Yankees intercepted a hit-and-run sign to
him. Berra, the catcher, signaled a pitchout, and his throw to Rizzuto at
second base beat Stanky by 10 feet. But Stanky slid and kicked the ball out of Rizzutos glove
into center field with his right foot. Stanky ran to
third, Rizzuto was charged with an error, and the Giants scored five unearned
runs.
I was nonchalanting it," Rizzuto admitted sheepishly.
"I was looking at the TV camera."
Rizzuto was
shocked when the Yankees released him in 1956 to sign outfielder Enos Slaughter. But he soon accepted a job in the Yankee
radio and TV booth alongside Mel Allen and Red Barber, two towering figures in sportscasting.
Youll never last," Howard Cosell,
then a radio sportscaster, told him. "You look like George Burns and you
sound like Groucho Marx."
Despite
occasional threats to resign, Rizzuto lasted in the Yankee booth until 1996. To
those who heard him exclaim "Holy cow!" for a play (or a cannoli) that excited him or chide a player as a
"huckleberry" for committing an error, he was an endearing,
idiosyncratic voice despite his lack of professional credentials.
Over four
decades, he transformed himself from a conventional announcer with a distinctly
As for his
trademark expression "Holy cow", he said he adopted it in high school
at his baseball coachs suggestion, to replace profanity.
When the Yankees
celebrated Rizzuto with a day in his honor in 1985, retiring his uniform No.
10, the team presented him with a cow wearing a halo, which promptly stepped on
his foot and knocked him over.
Rizzuto often
diverged from actual game-calling, pausing to extend birthday, anniversary and
confirmation congratulations. He never used the first names of his partners at
WPIX-TV - they were "Coleman", "Murcer",
"White", "Messer", "Seaver",
or Cerone", never Jerry, Bobby,
Rizzuto had met
Cora Ellenborg at a communion breakfast in
Rizzutos
ramblings and pro-Yankee sentiments maddened detractors. But his fans adored
him as they would a delightful uncle, and colleagues were fond of recalling his
scorecard notation of W.W. - wasnt
watching.
After many years
of failing to get into the Hall of Fame, Rizzuto was elected in 1994 by the
Halls veterans committee, which reconsiders candidates not voted in by
sportswriters. Friends like Berra, White and Reese sat on the committee.
Rizzuto abruptly
resigned from WPIX in August 1995, distraught that he had remained to broadcast
a game at
I took it
hard and knew I made a big mistake", he said later. "I got more upset
as the game went on and left in the fifth. They tried to drag me back, but I wouldnt". He returned in 1996 for a final season,
persuaded by fans, Mantles sons and George
Steinbrenner, the Yankees principal owner. The pull of his
cherished team was too strong. He was, after all, someone who practically saw
the world filtered through Yankee pinstripes.
When the news
came in 1978 that Pope