Rizzuto, Yankees Hall of Fame shortstop, broadcaster, dies

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Rizzuto, Yankees Hall of Fame shortstop, broadcaster, dies

• Rizzuto, Yankees Hall of Fame shortstop, broadcaster, dies

Tuesday, August 14th 2007, 10:50 AM

Phil Rizzuto, known as 'The Scooter,' was the oldest living Hall of Famer.

• Share your favorite memory of Phil 'Scooter' Rizzuto

Phil Rizzuto, a Hall of Fame shortstop and 40-year broadcaster for the New York Yankees known for his casual delivery and catchphrase "holy cow," has died. He was 89.
The Yankees confirmed Rizzuto's death, without giving details.
Nicknamed "Scooter," Rizzuto gained a reputation as a speedy pest in lineups that included future Hall of Famers Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra. He was the American League's Most Valuable Player in 1950 and played on seven World Series champion teams.
As an announcer, Rizzuto won legions of fans with homespun commentary, often involving his wife, Cora, or his most recent Italian meal. His popularity spread beyond New York, fueled by his appearance on Meat Loaf's 1978 hit song "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" and parodies by comedian Billy Crystal.
"I don't think I had a style anyone would want to copy," Rizzuto once said.
He was a shameless Yankee booster who peppered his broadcasts with "holy cows" and good-natured references to people who displeased him as "huckleberries."
Maris Call
Here's how he called Roger Maris's 61st home run at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx on Oct. 1, 1961, which eclipsed Babe Ruth's single-season record:
"Here's the windup, fastball, hit deep to right, this could be it! Way back there! Holy cow, he did it! Sixty-one for Maris! And look at the fight for that ball out there! Holy cow, what a shot! Another standing ovation for Maris, and they're still fighting for that ball out there, climbing over each other's backs. One of the greatest sights I've ever seen here at Yankee Stadium!"
Rizzuto also had his share of bloopers:
"Reggie's home run has gone clear out of the ballpark."
Bill White, then his radio partner: "Actually, Scooter, the ball landed in the seats."
Rizutto: "It doesn't matter. They can't see it anyway at home."
Or, "If Don Mattingly isn't the American League MVP, nothing's kosher in China."
Pope Comment
And then there was one that got him in trouble.
In 1978, he was criticized by some media outlets for saying on the air, after learning that Pope Paul VI had died, "Well, that kind of puts a damper on even a Yankee win." Yankee fans, though, knew their beloved Scooter meant no disrespect.
Philip Francis Rizzuto was born on Sept. 25, 1917, in Brooklyn. At age 4, his father, a trolley motorman, gave him a baseball bat and glove.
He tried out for all three New York Major League Baseball teams after high school, and was rejected by the New York Giants and his boyhood favorite, the Brooklyn Dodgers, because of his relatively small 5-foot-6, 160-pound frame. The Yankees signed him and sent him to the minor leagues in 1936.
He was called up to the Yankees five years later as the replacement for longtime shortstop Frank Crosetti. He said his new teammates were slow to accept him until DiMaggio interceded. The two became lifelong friends.
Rizzuto batted .307 with three home runs, 46 runs batted in and 14 stolen bases as a rookie in 1941 as the Yankees won the World Series.
He played another season before enlisting in the U.S. Navy, where he served three years in the Pacific in World War II.
Bunts and Steals
He returned to the Yankees in 1946 to begin a nine-year run as the team's regular shortstop. He developed a reputation for doing unglamorous things well on a team of superstars: He bunted, caught ground balls and stole bases.
"He was the guy who had speed," former teammate and broadcast partner Jerry Coleman said in 1994. "He had great hands. He was a great, great player. Anyone that good has a tremendous influence on a ballclub."
Rizzuto had his best year in 1950 when the Yankees won the second of five straight World Series. He batted .324 with seven homers, 66 RBI and 18 steals to be named the Most Valuable Player.
"When they told me I won it, I thought they were kidding," Rizzuto said. "I never thought I'd be the MVP of the American League."
He played through the 1956 season, hitting .273 with 38 homers, 563 RBIs and 149 steals in 1,661 games. Rizzuto led the American League in sacrifice hits for four straight years and had a .968 fielding percentage at shortstop during his career.
'Hold My Own'
"The fact that I was able to play with the big guys and hold my own," he said in 1996, "making the double play, helping the team and not hurting the team, was the thing I appreciated most of all."
He was a five-time All Star during 13 seasons. The Yankees retired his No. 10 in a ceremony in August 1985, and he was honored with a plaque in Monument Park, behind Yankee Stadium's center field. He was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994 following a long campaign by Yankee fans.
Near the end of his playing career, Rizzuto said baseball announcer Mel Allen had invited him to the broadcast booth for commentary after he was taken out of games.
He decided to make broadcasting a career, turning down offers from the Giants and Baltimore Orioles for one with the Yankees - worth less money - because he had just opened a bowling alley with Berra.
Leaving Early
During broadcasts, Rizutto would joke about leaving Yankee Stadium early to beat the traffic on the George Washington Bridge going back to his home in New Jersey. He called his broadcast partners by their last name - "White" instead of "Bill," for example. He sent out birthday greetings, sometimes in the middle of a play-by-play call.
He remained a broadcaster until he walked out of the booth in 1995 during a game in Boston, angry for missing former teammate Mantle's funeral for work. He was persuaded to return for 30 games in 1996 before retiring for good.
Rizzuto also spent more than 20 years as a spokesman on television commercials for The Money Store, a lender, before being replaced by fellow Baseball Hall-of-Famer Jim Palmer in 1993. He also did commercials for other businesses, including New York-area appliance-seller P.C. Richard and Sons in the mid-1990s.
Survivors include his wife, four children and two grandchildren. Funeral arrangements weren't immediately announced.

 

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Phil and Meat Loaf will always have "Paradise"

ESPN Page 2 - Pearlman: We'll always have "Paradise"



He remembers every little thing as if it happened only yesterday.

In the summer of 1976, Michael Lee Aday (aka Meat Loaf) spent his time listening to one New York Yankee game after another, jotting down everything that emerged from the mouth of the team's TV color commentator, Phil Rizzuto. Though Meat Loaf wasn't looking for anything in particular, he uncovered verbal gold. "Phil was one of the greatest storytellers baseball has ever seen," said Meat Loaf on Wednesday afternoon, two days after Rizzuto's death at age 89. "He would talk about the game, but he'd also talk about Billy Martin's fishing trip or a great restaurant nearby or somebody's 50th birthday. He was very unique."

From all those days and nights in front of the television, Meat Loaf -- along with legendary song writer Jim Steinman -- pieced together what is, without question, the most famous baseball play-by-play call in the history of sexually themed rock 'n' roll songs performed by a man nicknamed for diced cattle parts placed in a pan and baked for 45 minutes at 375 degrees (350 if your oven tends to run hot).

Without Rizzuto's contribution, "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" still goes down as a fantastic piece of rock opera.

With Rizzuto's contribution, it is an all-time classic.

"Phil was an absolutely huge part of that song," Meat Loaf said. "Huge. You have a tempo change, then all of sudden there's this baseball play-by-play this amazing baseball play-by-play."

For those of you out of the Meat Loaf loop, "Paradise By the Dashboard Light," off of the famed "Bat Out of Hell" albums, tells the story of a teenage boy trying to talk his girlfriend into sex. For the first 3½ minutes, Meat Loaf leads one into believing the kid just might get lucky -- "We're gonna go all the way tonight; We're gonna go all the way; And tonight's the night ... "

Boom! Enter Phil Rizzuto, speaking in that casual way, his nasally voice reciting the lines prepared by Meat Loaf and Steinman as if he were describing Chris Chambliss or Mickey Rivers or Graig Nettles:

"OK, here we go, we got a real pressure cooker going here. Two down, nobody on, no score, bottom of the ninth. There's the windup, and there it is. A line shot up the middle, look at him go. This boy can really fly. He's rounding first and really turning it on now. He's not letting up at all, he's gonna try for second. The ball is bobbled out in the center. And here's the throw and what a throw. He's gonna slide in head first. Here he comes, he's out. No, wait, safe, safe at second base. This kid really makes things happen out there. Batter steps up to the plate. Here's the pitch, he's going. And what a jump he's got. He's trying for third. Here's the throw. It's in the dirt, safe a third. Holy cow, stolen base. He's taking a pretty big lead out there. Almost daring them to pick him off. The pitcher glances over, winds up and it's bunted. Bunted down the third-base line. The suicide squeeze is on. Here he comes, squeeze play, it's gonna be close. Here's the throw, here's the play at the plate. Holy cow, I think he's gonna make it!"

With a soft chuckle, Meat Loaf warmly remembered the first time he and Steinman reached out to Rizzuto. The future Hall of Famer was represented by former Met Art Shamsky, who told Meat Loaf that, "Phil will do it, but he wants to know if people have to get high to listen to it."

"No," Meat Loaf replied. "You can be sober and enjoy it, too."

Rizzuto arrived at Manhattan's The Hit Factory one day in 1976, met with Meat Loaf and Steinman and read over his lines. He initially expected to sing something ("I love to sing," Rizzuto once told the National Post. "All Italians love to sing. We're not all good, but most of us are good."), then asked why every play was so close. When he finally recorded, Rizzuto's delivery was flat and wooden. "Just do it like it's a game," Meat Loaf advised.

The second take was perfect.

In the world of Meat Loaf Trivia (check the Internet -- such a word exists), there has long been debate over whether Rizzuto was aware of what, exactly, he was being put up to. Would a nice Italian Catholic boy feel comfortable equating baseball with sex? Publicly, Rizzuto maintained he had no idea.

Privately, Meat Loaf said he understands the truth.

"Phil was no dummy -- he knew exactly what was going on, and he told me such," Meat Loaf said. "He was just getting some heat from a priest and felt like he had to do something. I totally understood. But I believe Phil was proud of that song and his participation."

Though he and Rizzuto spoke only sporadically over the years, Meat Loaf took the news of his musical partner's passing hard. A die-hard Yankees fan dating back to his boyhood in Dallas, Meat Loaf was raised watching Mantle and Maris and Ford and Berra and, yes, Rizzuto on the televised Game of the Week.

He has performed "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" in concert, oh, 7,000 times since the song's release in 1977, always making certain to play Rizzuto's part over PA systems ranging from Yakima to Yonkers, Los Angeles to London, New York to Newfoundland.

"I think that's why I feel so close to him," Meat Loaf said. "Every night I hear him. Every night I'll continue to hear him." He paused. "That," Meat Loaf said, "is a wonderful thing."