Phil Rizzuto
Philip Francis Rizzuto, nicknamed "the Scooter", was an American Major League Baseball shortstop. He spent his entire 13-year baseball career with the New York Yankees, and was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994.
A popular figure on a team dynasty that captured 10 AL titles and seven World Championships in his 13 seasons, Rizzuto holds numerous World Series records for shortstops. His best statistical season was 1950, when he was named the American League's Most Valuable Player. Generally, Rizzuto was a "small ball" player, noted for his strong defense in the infield and as a great bunter. When he retired, his 1,217 career double plays ranked second in major league history, trailing only Luke Appling's total of 1,424, and his.968 career fielding average trailed only Lou Boudreau's mark of.973 among AL shortstops.
After his playing career, Rizzuto had a 40-year career as a radio and television sports announcer for the Yankees. He was known for his idiosyncratic, conversational broadcast style, and for his trademark expression "holy cow!"
Early years
Fiore Rizzuto was born on September 25, 1917, in Brooklyn, New York, the son of a streetcar motorman and his wife, both of whom were originally from Calabria, Italy. There has been confusion about his year of birth, stemming from Rizzuto's "shaving a year off" the date at the beginning of his pro career, on the advice of teammates. Throughout his career, his birth year was reported as 1918 in The Sporting News, the Baseball Register, and the American League Red Book; later reference sources revised the year to 1917, indicating his age at the time of his death to be 89. After Rizzuto's death, the New York Post broke a story that inaccurately reported Rizzuto's year of birth as 1916. However, it was subsequently reported that the New York City Department of Health said Rizzuto's official birth certificate is dated 1917.Rizzuto grew up in Glendale, Queens. Despite his modest size — usually listed during his playing career as five feet, six inches tall and either 150 or 160 pounds, though he rarely reached even the lower figure — Rizzuto played baseball as well as football at Richmond Hill High School in Queens.
Playing career
After playing with the minor league Bassett Furnituremakers for the 1937 season, Rizzuto signed with the New York Yankees as an amateur free agent. His nickname, at times attributed to Yankees broadcaster Mel Allen, was actually bestowed on Rizzuto by minor league teammate Billy Hitchcock because of the way Rizzuto ran the bases.After receiving The Sporting News Minor League Player of the Year Award in 1940 while playing with the Kansas City Blues, he played his first major league game on April 14, 1941. Taking over for the well-liked Frank Crosetti, whose batting average had dropped to.194 after several strong seasons, Rizzuto quickly fit into the Yankees lineup to form an outstanding middle infield with second baseman Joe Gordon. In his syndicated column on October 1, Grantland Rice compared the pair favorably to the middle infield of the crosstown Brooklyn Dodgers: "Billy Herman and Pee Wee Reese around the highly important keystone spot don't measure up, over a season anyway, with Joe Gordon and Phil Rizzuto, a pair of light-footed, quick-handed operatives who can turn seeming base hits into double plays often enough to save many a close scrap."
Rizzuto ended his rookie season playing in the 1941 World Series, and though he hit poorly, the Yankees beat the Dodgers. In the following year's World Series, Rizzuto led all hitters with a batting average of.381 and 8 hits. The light-hitting shortstop also contributed a home run, despite hitting just four in the regular season.
Like many players of the era, he found his career interrupted by a stint in the military, serving in the United States Navy during World War II. From 1943 through 1945, he played on a Navy baseball team alongside Dodgers shortstop Reese; the team was managed by Yankees catcher Bill Dickey.
Shortly after Rizzuto's return to the Yankees for the 1946 season, he attracted the ire of new Yankees general manager, president, and co-owner Larry MacPhail, former president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. MacPhail had served in both World Wars, was hard-drinking, tempestuous, and often paranoid, but as a baseball executive was innovative and considered a near-genius despite being hobbled by alcohol and a volatile temper. In 1946 MacPhail became aware that Mexican millionaire and ball club owner Jorge Pasquel, just named president of the Mexican League and who with his wealthy two brothers had poached American players from the Negro leagues since 1943, was now courting Major League players. Several clubs lost players with others mentioned including the Yankees, and Phil Rizzuto was rumored to be considering a $100,000, 3-year contract. For that matter, a number of players on various teams had begun "moonlighting" in winter playing for Cuban teams. The disarray had to end. Baseball Commissioner Albert Happy Chandler, former Kentucky governor, announced on Opening Day that exclusivity clauses still ruled—all contract-jumping players heading to Mexico or Cuba would be suspended from the Major Leagues for 5 years.
The New York Herald Tribune sent one of its star sportswriters, Rutherford "Rud" Rennie, down to Mexico to see what was up with the invigorated Mexican League and the ambitious Pasquel Brothers. By that time they had hired a trio of Mariachi musicians wearing sombreros to play outside at least one American stadium. The Trib's Rennie sent several dispatches from Mexico, liking some things about the scene but disliking others. Rennie, who had covered the Yankees since the Roaring Twenties, was soon astounded when MacPhail sued the Mexican Baseball League and the restraining order named Rud Rennie as an "agent" of the foreigners. Court papers alleged that he had "been seen" in the Yankees locker room talking with his good friend Phil Rizzuto and other players and advocating contract-jumping. Hours later, the Dodgers and Giants owners hastened into court also; their teams were among the 10 who had actually lost a combined number of 23 players that season. The situation was hardly helped when retired Yankees slugger-hero Babe Ruth took his family on an extended Mexican vacation as guest of the Pasquels, and new rumors flew that Ruth was being wooed for a Mexican club manager's job. The lawsuits soon moved to the US Supreme Court, but the Yankees' MacPhail saw he had overreacted in pushing a restraining order on Rennie for merely covering the news and maintaining good relationships with Rizzuto and teammates; the order was dropped, avoiding a potential first amendment fracas for Larry MacPhail, who would be edged out in a year. Perhaps at least partially caused by the court action and negative attention, the Yankees finished third in 1946 and Rizzuto's average went down to.257. By 1947, Commissioner Chandler let Americans return to their home clubs with no penalty. And In 1947 the increasingly valued Rizzuto recorded a.969 fielding average, breaking Crosetti's 1939 team record for shortstops of.968. He broke his own record the following year with a.973 mark.
Rizzuto's peak as a player was 1949–50, when he was moved into the leadoff spot. In 1950, his MVP season, he hit.324 with 200 hits and 92 walks, and scored 125 runs. While leading the league in fielding percentage, Rizzuto handled 238 consecutive chances without an error, setting the single-season record for shortstops.
From September 18, 1949, through June 7, 1950, he played 58 games at shortstop without an error, breaking the AL record of 46 set by Eddie Joost in 1947–48; the record stood until Ed Brinkman played error-free for 72 games in 1972. Rizzuto recorded 123 double plays in 1950, three more than Crosetti's total from 1938; it remains the Yankee record. Rizzuto's 1950 fielding percentage of.9817 led the league, and came within less than a point of Lou Boudreau's league record of.9824, set in 1947. Rizzuto's mark was a franchise record until 1976, when Yankees shortstop Fred Stanley posted a mark of.983.
Rizzuto was voted the American League's Most Valuable Player by a large margin in 1950, after having been the runner-up for the award behind Ted Williams in 1949. He became the only MVP in history who led the league in sacrifice bunts. Rizzuto played in five All-Star Games, in 1942 and each year from 1950 to 1953. In 1950, he also won the Hickok Belt, awarded to the top professional athlete of the year, and was named Major League Player of the Year by The Sporting News. He was voted top major league shortstop by The Sporting News four consecutive years.
Rizzuto batted.320 in the 1951 World Series, for which the New York chapter of the BBWAA later voted him the Babe Ruth Award as the Series' top player. Decades later, Rizzuto still spoke resentfully of the incident in which pugnacious New York Giants second baseman Eddie Stanky sparked a rally by kicking the ball out of Rizzuto's glove on a tag play. Ty Cobb named Rizzuto and Stan Musial as "two of the few modern ball players who could hold their own among old timers." Yankees manager Casey Stengel had famously dismissed Rizzuto during that Brooklyn Dodgers tryout in 1935 when Stengel was managing that team, advising him to "go get a shoeshine box." But Stengel ended up managing Rizzuto during five consecutive championship seasons, and would later say, "He is the greatest shortstop I have ever seen in my entire baseball career, and I have watched some beauties." During his heyday, Yankees pitcher Vic Raschi noted, "My best pitch is anything the batter grounds, lines or pops in the direction of Rizzuto." Decades into his retirement, teammate Joe DiMaggio characterized Rizzuto's enduring appeal to fans: "People loved watching me play baseball. Scooter, they just loved."
Rizzuto was noted for "small ball", strong defense, and clutch hitting, which helped the Yankees win seven World Series. As an offensive player, he is particularly regarded as one of the best bunters of his era; he led the AL in sacrifice hits every season from 1949 to 1952. In retirement, he often tutored players on the bunt during spring training. In the announcing booth, Rizzuto talked about the several different kinds of bunts he would use in different situations. Later during his broadcasting career, he occasionally expressed disappointment that the art of bunting had largely been lost in baseball. Rizzuto was among the AL's top five players in stolen bases seven times. Defensively, he led the league three times each in double plays and total chances per game, twice each in fielding and putouts, and once in assists. Rizzuto ranks among the top ten players in several World Series categories, including games, hits, walks, runs, and steals. Three times during his career, the Yankees played until Game Seven of the World Series; Rizzuto batted.455 in those three games.
In Rizzuto's obituary, The New York Times recalled a play that had occurred on September 17, 1951, with the Yankees and Cleveland Indians tied for first place and just 12 games left in the season:
As the winning run scored, Lemon angrily threw both the ball and his pitching glove into the stands.
Rizzuto was released by the Yankees on August 25, 1956. Rizzuto often talked about the unusual circumstances of his release. Late in the 1956 season, the Yankees re-acquired Enos Slaughter, who had been with the team in 1954–55, and asked Rizzuto to meet with the front office to discuss adjustments to the upcoming postseason roster. They then asked Rizzuto to look over the list of Yankee players and suggest which ones might be cut to make room for Slaughter. For each name Rizzuto mentioned, a reason was given as to why that player needed to be kept. Finally, Rizzuto realized that the expendable name was his own. He called former teammate George Stirnweiss, who told him to refrain from "blasting" the Yankees because it might cost him a non-playing job later. Rizzuto said many times that following Stirnweiss' advice was probably the best move he ever made.
When he retired, his 1,217 career double plays ranked second in major league history, trailing only Luke Appling's total of 1,424, and his.968 career fielding average trailed only Lou Boudreau's mark of.973 among AL shortstops. He also ranked fifth in AL history in games at shortstop, eighth in putouts and total chances, and ninth in assists.
At the time of his last game, he had also appeared in the most World Series games ever, a record soon surpassed by five of his Yankees teammates. Rizzuto still holds numerous World Series records for shortstops, including the most career games played, singles, walks, times on base, stolen bases, at-bats, putouts, assists and double plays.