Phil Rizzuto (Chicago Tribune) Obituary (Great!)
Bill Schenley
FROM: The Chicago Tribune ~
By Bob Herzog
If Phil Rizzuto had never broadcast a single Yankees
game, he would still be a beloved New York sports
figure for his dazzling fielding, uncanny bunting and
timely hitting as the greatest shortstop in Yankees'
history.
If Phil Rizzuto had never played a single Yankees
game, he would still be a beloved New York sports
figure for his unabashed rooting,
stream-of-consciousness descriptions of baseball and
life, and comical interplay with numerous partners as
a Yankees announcer for parts of five decades.
That's the unique legacy of The Scooter. He had two
separate Yankee careers -- as a player and
broadcaster -- that spanned 56 years, won him legions
of fans of all ages and made him one of the most
popular and well-recognized personalities in New
York sports history.
"He's one of the most lovable characters I've ever met
... and one of the most underrated broadcast
professionals that's probably ever been," Topps
publicity director and former Yankees publicist Marty
Appel told Dan Hirshberg in the book, "Phil Rizzuto:
A Yankee Tradition."
"He is the greatest shortstop I have ever seen in my
entire baseball career, and I have watched some
beauties," Casey Stengel, who managed Rizzuto for
eight seasons, once said. "Honus Wagner was a better
hitter, sure, but I've seen this kid make plays Wagner
never did."
Rizzuto, who played all 13 of his seasons in pinstripes
and was MVP of the American League in 1950, died
today at age 89. He was in declining health for years
and living at a nursing home in West Orange, N.J.,
according to AP.
As well known for his bunts and double plays as he
was for his exclamations of "Holy Cow!" or "that
huckleberry," Rizzuto was the common bond that
linked generations of Yankees players and fans
beginning with his rookie season of 1941 and ending
with his final year behind the microphone in 1996.
No Yankee has ever had a longer day-to-day
association with the club. "He is the Yankees,"
longtime friend and broadcast partner Bill White once
said.
This symbol of pinstripe pride was the heart and soul
of Yankee teams that won nine pennants and seven
World Series during his 13-year career (1941-56
with a three-year interruption for military service from
1943-45). That included the 1949-53 championship
seasons, when Rizzuto was one of 12 Yankees to be
a part of the only team in major-league history to win
five consecutive World Series. Ted Williams, the Red
Sox' Hall of Fame slugger, often said that the reason
the Yankees bested Boston so many times for
American League supremacy in the 1940s and 1950s
was because of Rizzuto. "A lot of people said their
shortstop, Rizzuto, was too small," Williams said in
"The October Twelve" co-authored by Rizzuto and
Tom Horton, "but, damn, knew how to beat you.
Makes me sick to think about it."
Rizzuto batted .273 for his career and stole 149
bases, but those numbers only tell part of the story.
He was an acrobatic fielder and artistic bunter whose
contributions to the Yankees' dynasty were huge
despite his 5-6, 150-pound stature. Teammate
Tommy Henrich told Hirshberg that Rizzuto was,
"poetry in motion. He just glided around. He was
nimble ... He could twist his body around and get in
position to make some great plays."
Infielder Johnny Pesky of the Red Sox told David
Halberstam in the best-selling book "Summer of '49,"
that his arch-rival was "the best shotstop of the era --
he held that team together the way Pee Wee Reese
held the Dodgers together."
His defense was so good that pitcher Vic Raschi
once said, "My best pitch is anything the batter
grounds, lines or pops in the direction of Rizzuto."
His offense was never more appreciated than in 1950,
when he batted .324 with 200 hits, including 36 doubles,
seven triples and seven homers. He scored 125 runs,
drove in 66 and walked 91 times in leading the
Yankees to a pennant and World Series sweep of the
Phillies. Rizzuto's finest season was capped off when
he was named the American League's MVP and was
voted the major league's player of the year by The
Sporting News.
Phillip Francis Rizzuto was born in Brooklyn on
Sept. 25, 1917. He excelled at baseball and football
on the streets and in the sandlots, where his speed,
quickness and smarts helped him overcome a
perceived height disadvantage. His coach at Richmond
Hill High School, Al Kunitz, shifted Rizzuot from the
outfield to the infield, where he starred at third base as
a sophomore and shortstop as a junior, earning all-city
honors both years. Kunitz was also the man who
taught Rizzuto how to bunt and steal bases. Rizzuto left
high school to work and concentrate on sandlot ball in
the spring of 1936, optimistic he would be signed by a
major-league club.
His first two tryouts, however, with the Giants and
Dodgers, ended in failure and disheartening comments
about his lack of height. However, veteran Yankees
scout Paul Krichell -- who had signed Lou Gehrig and
Tony Lazzeri among others -- spotted Rizzuto in a
sandlot game at Floral Park and was impressed enough
to invite him to a week-long tryout at Yankee Stadium.
Rizzuto did well and Krichell signed him just ahead
of the also-eager Red Sox. Rizzuto was sent to the
Yankees' minor-league team in Bassett, Va., where he
was paid $75 a month. Rizzuto overcame a serious leg
injury to eventually star in the minors at Norfolk, Va.,
and Kansas City, where manager Billy Hitchcock
nicknamed him "Scooter" because of his range and
speed in the field. He and his minor-league double-play
partner, second baseman Gerry Priddy, both made the
Yankees' roster for the 1941 season.
Rizzuto was an instant success as a replacement for
long-time Yankees shortstop Frank Crosetti.
He batted .307 as a rookie and became an infield
fixture. He was the team's starting shortstop from
1941-54, except for the war years of 1943-45,
playing in five All-Star games. He played a reserve
role in his final two seasons of 1955 and '56.
The signature play of Rizzuto's career occurred on
Sept. 17, 1951. Cleveland came to Yankee Stadium
tied for first place with New York. A pitcher's duel
was tied at 1 entering the bottom of the ninth. With
one out, the Yankees loaded the bases against the
Indians' superb righthander, Bob Lemon. Rizzuto
came to bat with a sellout crowd and the opposition
expecting a suicide squeeze play. Sure enough, on a
1-0 pitch Joe DiMaggio broke towards home from
third base. Lemon threw a pitch over Rizzuto's head,
thinking it was impossible to bunt. But the Scooter
managed to drop down a perfect bunt scoring
DiMaggio and putting the Yankees in first place to
stay.
A frustrated Lemon tossed his glove into the netting
behind home plate before stalking off the field in
disgust. "That squeeze play ... really hurt," Lemon
said in "Phil Rizzuto: a Yankee Tradition." "I knew it
was coming. DiMaggio gave it away. He broke too
soon. I threw a ball right behind Phil's head and he
still laid down a perfect bunt. I tried to pitch it where
he couldn't bunt it, but he laid down a blueprint and
the game was over. It felt just like when you throw a
good pitch and somebody hits a home run to beat
you."
Rizzuto's pragmatic reaction? "If I didn't bunt, it
would have hit me in the head."
Getting plunked by a fastball would not have jolted
Rizzuto any more than the way his playing career
ended. In August of 1956, he was called to general
manager George Weiss' office, where Stengel was
already there. The two bosses asked for Rizzuto's
opinion about Yankees who might be cut to make
room for veteran outfielder Enos Slaughter, a
late-season acquisition. At first, Rizzuto was flattered
that he was being asked. But soon, as Stengel and
Weiss nixed each suggestion, it became clear what
the meeting was really about: the 38-year-old Rizzuto
was the player who would be cut.
The Scooter was shocked and, at the time, quite
bitter, as he assumed if would be kept for the
remainder of the season and allowed to retire in the
offseason. "I was crushed and even more devastated
to learn the player they'd picked up to replace me
was even older than I was," Rizzuto said in "The
October Twelve." Slaughter was 40 in 1956.
Rizzuto was fuming, and might've gone to reporters
and blasted his team had he not run into ex-Yankee
teammate Snuffy Stirnweiss in the hallway. Stirnweiss,
at The Stadium for the first Oldtimers Day that
afternoon, calmed Rizzuto down, told him to avoid
reporters and sent him to the Catskills for a few days
with his wife, Cora.
"He was an angel," Rizzuto wrote. "After several
days I cooled off. The hurt was still hurting, but my
mind was in control. If I had popped off to the press
about the way I felt, a whole lot of things that
happened to me after 1956 might never have fallen
into place."
What happened was that in December of 1956, the
Yankees announced that Rizzuto would join
broadcasting legends Mel Allen and Red Barber on
the Yankees' announcing team beginning with the
1957 season. Rizzuto's unpolished enthusiasm, naivety
and pro-Yankee feelings -- cynics called him the
Yankee Rooter -- were in sharp contrast to the
professional approach of 'pure' broadcasters like
Allen and Barber. Yet he flourished because fans
identified with him. These were Yankees' games
afterall. "It's hard to be impartial when the Yankees
have been my life," Rizzuto once told a reporter.
The formula worked. Rizzuto the announcer became
more popular than Rizzuto the player ever was. He
read fan mail and gave birthday greetings on the air.
He digressed when the games were boring, often
talking about non-baseball topics in a hilarious
manner.
Former National League president Bill White, Rizzuto's
broadcaster partner and friend for years, loved to tell
of the time Rizzuto introduced them on the air as
"Phil White and Bill Rizzuto." Or the time White asked
to look at Rizzuto's scoreboard and saw the notation
WW. "I asked him what does that mean and he said,
'Wasn't watching.'"
Rizzuto wasn't always smooth, but he was the
perfect partner. "If you think about it, people always
say, gee, that White and Rizzuto, what a great team;
that Healy and Rizzuto, what a great team; gee, that
Murcer and Rizzuto, what a great team," Appel told
Hirshberg. "And all of a sudden you see a recurring
pattern there ... He just brings out the best in virtually
everyone he has worked with. It's a very rare gift and
really it makes him an unsung braodcast talent."
For too long, Rizzuto was also an unsung baseball
talent, as far as the Hall of Fame voting went. But
on July 31, 1994, after an earlier vote of the
Veterans Committee, Rizzuto joyously accepted his
plaque and induction in baseball's shrine at
Cooperstown. His rambling, long-winded
(38 minutes) and heart-felt acceptance speech drew
cheers and tears from the thousands who flocked to
the tiny upstate village. Ralph Kiner, the Pittsburgh
slugger and long-time Mets broadcaster who as a
Hall of Famer has attended many induction
ceremonies, called Rizzuto's speech "the best. I don't
recall anyone every giving a better one in
Cooperstown.
Several days later, the Yankees staged Phil Rizzuto
Day at The Stadium, and a crowd of 50,700
showered more affection on their favorite shortstop.
Rizzuto was touched, not expecting such a turnout so
soon after his Hall of Fame induction. He told friends,
"Tonight was even more emotion-packed than
Cooperstown. This is where I spent the 13 years that
made Cooperstown happen. Holy Cow! This is where
I spent much of my life."
Which is why Bobby Murcer's comment in
"Phil Rizzuto: A Yankee Tradition" seems like a
perfect epitaph: "He's a legend," Murcer said. "When
you think of the Yankees, you think of DiMaggio,
Mantle, and Phil Rizzuto."
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, Bill Schenley <stra...@ma.rr.com> wrote:
> Yankee Legend Phil Rizzuto Dies
>
> FROM: The Chicago Tribune ~
> By Bob Herzog
If this isn't the best baseball obit I've ever read, it's pretty
close.
> This symbol of pinstripe pride was the heart and soul
> of Yankee teams that won nine pennants and seven
> World Series during his 13-year career (1941-56
> with a three-year interruption for military service
> from 1943-45).
That "military service," BTW, was playing baseball on the all-Navy
team. They didn't lose a lot of games.
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / bal...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it. -T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Schenley
>
> > FROM: The Chicago Tribune ~
> > By Bob Herzog
>
> If this isn't the best baseball obit I've ever read, it's
> pretty close.
Yeah. Great obit. And, at least in my opinion, it put the New York Times
pre-written crapazoid obit to shame.
> > This symbol of pinstripe pride was the heart and
> > soul of Yankee teams that won nine pennants and
> > seven World Series during his 13-year career
> > (1941-56 with a three-year interruption for military
> > service from 1943-45).
>
> That "military service," BTW, was playing baseball on the
> all-Navy team. They didn't lose a lot of games.
Of the (approximately) 350 major league baseball players who served in the
military during World War II, over 300 just played baseball stateside. Only
a few, like Ted Williams and Bob Feller, demanded, and received, a combat
posting. Both Williams and Feller threatened to go to the press if they did
not get combat duty.
In 1944, under pressure from the press, George Marshall ordered the
stateside leagues disbanded and the players shipped overseas. Didn't change
much ... as the leagues just reformed in new places. Joe DiMaggio, Joe
Gordon and Red Ruffing, all Yankees, played for an Army team (7th Army Air
Corp) in Hawaii ... They needed a shortstop for six *critical* games. Guess
who the Navy let them borrow?