Rizzuto (split from Surprise, You're Dead)

[soupcan]

Phil Rizzuto?

Can't get confirmation...

[soupcan]

Confirmed. Dead at 89.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Eighty-nine. Wow.

Bumping to main forum.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Holy cow!

[Guest Edgy DC]

GO AHEAD, SEAVER

You know,
Some kid wrote me a letter.
You and Murcer,
I know,
Every time Murcer says
I make oh for four and two errors.
Some guy wrote,
Which I haven't gotten yet,
He wrote it to Yankee Stadium,
But by the way,
You're doing the play-by-play, Seaver.
So go ahead.
I was gonna tell you something,
But I forgot what it was.
Go ahead.

[July 1, 1991 / Cleveland at New York / Lee Guetterman pitching to Chris James / Seventh inning, no outs, bases empty / Yankees lead 6-2]

[metirish]

R.I.P.


Lets win one for the Scooter.

[soupcan]

I was watching a Yankee game on WPIX, channel 11 sometime in the '80s and there was a rain delay and Phil was drinking red wine and was very drunk.

He kept taking a Yankee hat and putting on Bill White's head, White kept taking it off and Phil kept putting it on him. Both of them were laughing and laughing. Phil because he was sloshed and Bill because Phil was sloshed.

It was very funny.

And let's not forget 'Paradise By The Dashboard Light'.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

The legs are so important.
In golf, they're very,
People don't realize
How important legs are in golf,
Or in baseball,
And football, definitely.
Track.
Oh, in track.
All-important!
Jumping.
Soccer.
Is there anything
What?
Is there anything where the legs
Are not the most important?

[Guest Edgy DC]

The Diamond Dude

In the life of this dandiest of shortstops
Fashion starts the moment sports stops.
Since he works for the Newark American Shop
Of which Mac Stresin is the Prop,
The wardrobe acquired by Phil Rizzuto
Is as tasty as melon and prosciutto.
Thirty-five suits and twenty-odd jackets
Proclaim he's a man in the upper brackets.
There are fifteen overcoats hung in line,
And twenty-five pairs of shoes to shine,
And as for shirts and ties and socks,
Philip has more than Maine has rocks.
The suits are neat and unostentatious,
But as for sports clothes, goodness gracious!
No similar sight is to be had
This side of Gary Crosby's dad.
Does this make Mrs. Rizzuto ecstatic?
No. She has to hang her clothes in the attic.

-- Ogden Nash

Source: Life (September 5, 1955)

[Benjamin Grimm]

I actually attended Phil Rizzutto day at Yankee Stadium. (It was my second and last visit to the Palace of Evil.)

The reason I went was not to see Phil, but to see Tom Seaver win his 300th game.

During the pre-game honors for Rizzutto, they brought out a cow and it knocked Phil to the ground.

I remember, while enduring that ceremony, that Seaver had better get that 300th win to make the experience worthwhile.

He did, and it was.

[Farmer Ted]

Do the MFYs put a black arm band on the other sleeve now?

Seriously, I thought it sucked when he left the booth. He was the only enjoyable part of that team's broadcast through the 70s and 80s.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

I went to The Money Store today and there was a black ribbon across the door.

[Farmer Ted]

The Rizzuto family can go to this guy to get a suit for the wake.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LR3kAdhkF2Y

[metirish]

How many rings did he have?

[Farmer Ted]

Rizzuto, seven WS rings. Torre, one outlandish one on his pinky.

[Guest Edgy DC]

"If you ever worked with Rizzuto you'd know my motivation. How would you like to work eighteen years with a guy who still doesn't know your first name?" - Bill White

[stevejrogers]

Farmer Ted wrote: Do the MFYs put a black arm band on the other sleeve now? Seriously, I thought it sucked when he left the booth. He was the only enjoyable part of that team's broadcast through the 70s and 80s.

Serious response, no, since Martin they've put the number in black on their sleeve so it will be a black 10 patch

[bmfc1]

Did Rizzuto get a Grammy for "Paradise By The Dashboard Light"?

[Frayed Knot]

Weird in that I was just thinking about Rizzuto this morning.
Actually it was ESPN that triggered as there was a ARod tribute at Yanqui Stadium last night for his 500th and the gift took a tumble (I couldn't tell what it was) when they pulled the cover off of it. That made them dust off the film where the cow that was brought out on the field for Phil Rizzuto day wound up knocking Phil over.

Anyway, that all made me wonder how he was doing since I knew he hadn't been well. There was an item in the papers over the last year where he had left NJ to go live with a daughter (upstate I think) and they were selling a lot of memorabilia, etc. None of those are good signs when you're in your upper 80s, neither is the fact that he hadn't been seen in public in a long time.

Met him once briefly a bunch of years back and he was basically the same goofball that you think he was. Admitted to being a Dodger fan/Yankee hater when growing up although never liked to say that during Yanqui telecasts when he always professed to not knowing anything about "that National League".
He wound up getting shoved aside as the regular SS rather unceremoniously by the Yanx in the late '50s and was up in the broadcast booth almost immediately after his last game.


Doesn't belong in the HoF IMO, but that's an argument for a different day.

[Guest Edgy DC]

His Hall of Fame induction speech belongs in the Hall of Fame.

[Willets Point]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=nDQHQkuv9l0

[G-Fafif]

Anybody remember his role in the Nike NYC campaign of '99? I consider it classic.

[Frayed Knot]

Rizzuto, btw, had been the HoF's oldest living member, although Bob Feller is currently it's longest serving (earliest elected).
Feller may now hold both "titles".

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

I only vaguely recall the Nike campaign but I agree -- Scooter wasn't my cup of meat but he was very loved and definitely a presence that is to be recalled fondly.

[Guest Edgy DC]

A Rose is a Rose is a... Howie Rose, half of the Mets' radio play-by-play team, has a rather special memory of Rizzuto when he was a radio reporter in New York. Rose was in the Yankee Stadium pressbox, at some point in 1978, with a transistor radio near his ear, and when Rizzuto happened by, he assumed Rose was listening to a game that had some bearing on the American League East race.

So Scooter was surprised when Rose's response to the question, "What's the score?" was "3-2, Mets."

"He gave me a 'Holy Cow!'" Rose said, "and a 'Are you kiddin'?' and 'Unbelievable,' you know. 'Can you believe this huckleberry?' ... He called me a huckleberry. I was 24 years old, and I'd made it. Phil Rizzuto called me a huckleberry."

Later in his career as an announcer, Rizzuto was known not to pay close attention to the game he was working; hence the "WW" that often appeared in his scorecard. It stood for "wasn't watching." But he was aware of developments in-game, and in 1983, after the Mets acquired Keith Hernandez, Rizzuto watched a few innings of a Mets game during a Yankees' rain delay.

"That Hernandez," Rizzuto said. "He's right there in the batter's face. He'd be tough to bunt against. But there always a place to bunt the ball. That's the beauty of it."

[Guest Edgy DC]

Congrats to the Utica Observer-Dispatch for re-running the Hall of Fame induction story, with highlights from his Scooter-gooofy speech. He went in the same year as Bob Murphy.

July 31, 1994: Rizzuto steps up, connects with Hall of Fame speech

August 14, 2007

By John Pitarresi

The following is the story that ran Monday, Aug. 1, 1994, in the Observer-Dispatch about Phil Rizzuto's induction into the Hall of Fame.

COOPERSTOWN -Call it the "Phil Rizzuto Show."

The longtime New York Yankee infielder and broadcaster made the day his own with a hilarious but still touching stream-of-consciousness speech after his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame yesterday.

Philadelphia Phillies great Steve Carlton and late Dodgers and Giants manager Leo Durocher also were inducted and broadcaster Bob Murphy and the late sportwriter Wendell Smith were honored as the Hall of Fame held its 55th annual ceremonies.

Thousands of fans crowded into the field alongside the Alfred Corning Clark gymnasium for the festivities, broiling under a bright sun.

Rizzuto rewarded them with one of the most entertaining and memorable talks in Hall of Fame history.

"Holy cow," Rizzuto exclaimed to no one's great surprise as he stepped to the microphone, and he took off from there, continually breaking up the audience and most of the three dozen fellow Hall of Famers on hand.

Along the way, Rizzuto called Lou Brock a "huckleberry," thanked the "man upstairs" and his family for making it possible to be with the Yankees for 54 years, called Joe McCarthy the greatest manager he ever had, and became confused by his own rhetoric many times.

"A lot of nights, I'd wake up in a cold sweat thinking of what I'd do for a living if I hadn't been a baseball player," he said.

Then: "People who are understanding this speech, just raise your hand."

The crowd roared; Reggie Jackson's head snapped back in a spasm of laughter.

He spoke of his first stop in the minor leagues, in Virginia, and having breakfast every morning with the sheriff.

"White, White," he called to former broadcast partner and National League president Bill White in the audience. "What's that stuff that looks like oatmeal?"

Grits was the answer.

"I didn't know what to do with it," Rizzuto said. "I put it in my pocket."

Then, to the audience in general: "Any time you want to leave, leave."

Again the crowd roared.

The "Scooter" 5-foot-6 and 150 pounds remembered the great days as a Yankee nine American League championships, five consecutive World Series titles and the wonderful days of New York baseball with the Dodgers and Giants.

"What a club we had," he said. "We'd win the pennant by the Fourth of July, and we used to make more money for a World Series than we did all year."

No reaction.

"That was supposed to be a joke," he said.

He spoke of the "groupies" following the team, but added "Not me!" as a quick afterthought.

Rizzuto also revealed that he almost jumped to the Mexican League after World War II, thanks to an offer of $10,000, a Cadillac and other perks, but his wife, Cora, wouldn't hear of it.

"She didn't know she was turning down stockings, girdles," he said.

"Well, she didn't need a girdle. She is really well built."

Again, uncontrolled laughter from the fans and assembled Famers, although not, perhaps, from Mrs. Rizzuto.

At one point Hall of Fame catchers Yogi Berra and Johnny Bench took up Rizzuto's invitation to leave at any time.

"They took too many foul balls in the mask," he said.

True to his Yankee broadcast self, Rizzuto wished a friend a happy birthday and advised the crowd that "a day without cannolis is a day without sunshine."

The American League's 1950 Most Valuable Player, a key player and leader on some of the greatest teams in the history of the game, began to choke up just a bit at the end of his 30-minute talk.

"I don't want to start crying, although they say it's okay if you do," he said. "God bless all of you and God bless this wonderful game they call baseball."

Rizzuto hit .273 for his career, led the league in fielding twice and was regarded as one of the top bunters and double-play men in baseball.

Carlton won 329 games, second most by a lefty, and had 4,136 strikeouts, second only to Nolan Ryan. Durocher, represented by former wife Laraine Day and their son, Chris Durocher, was a 17-year big leaguer who played with the St. Louis Cardinals Gashouse Gang. He was better known as the manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants in the 1940s and 1950s, and as the early mentor of Willie Mays.

Murphy, the longtime New York Mets broadcaster, received the Ford C. Frick Award. Smith, who helped shepherd Jackie Robinson through the early days of the integration of baseball and was the first black member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, was honored with the J.G. Taylor Spink Award.

[MFS62]

Yes, I was a Brooklyn fan.
And later a Mets fan.
And have disliked most things Yankee all my baseball life.
But when I heard of the passing of The Scooter, I cried.

I saw him play.
I heard his first game as a broadcaster.
And over the years, he became more to all of us than just a sportscaster.
He was the grandfather we all wished we had.
He was a kind, genuine, warm gentleman.

Rest in Peace, Phil.

Later

[metirish]

Ralph Kiner said that HOF speech was the best he'd ever heard.

[Frayed Knot]

Murray Chass in Sunday's NYTimes reveals that Rizzuto had been lying about his age all along and had actually been born in 1916, not 1917 as was the "public" date, and was therefore just shy of his 91st birthday when he died.

Nice job by Phil for getting away with it all that time and good on Chass for sitting on the story (after promising Rizzuto) for 30-some years.