Today's Fallen Yankee Doesn't Bring Much Of A Smile

“Holy cow!” 89-year-old HOF’er Phil Rizzuto, died this morning. Although my hatred for the Yanks is through & through, my respect for baseball’s history is always expanding. He was with Evil Empire for 54 years. That’s amazing in & of itself, & he only left briefly to serve his country though the Navy in WWII with DiMaggio & Mantle.

Ted Williams fought to get the 7-time World Series Champ into the HOF, and finally succeeding in 1994. Williams said Rizzuto was the man who made the difference between the Yanks and his Red Sox. He always said, "If we'd had Rizzuto in Boston, we'd have won all those pennants instead of New York."

After Rizzuto couldn’t play anymore, he announced with such color for 40 years & only left after an unfortunate incident where they tried to force him to work through Mickey Mantle funeral. They of course did apologize later (as Georgie Porgie is know for after the fact) & he returned for one last season.



Rizzuto was the oldest living rookie in The Hall & still stated that he didn’t think he records compared to the legends there before him during his induction speech. He was humble & hilarious & I remember his distinct Brooklyn voice & curious but clean sayings. I loved that he’d call various characters “Huckleberry” when you could tell anyone else would be saying a bad word about them. And I loved it even more so when my Grandpa Paul used that term of endearment for me, usually just after telling me to quit blocking his view of the game.

Scooter was a good man, a great friend, and a perfect family man. And he was married to the love of his life Cora, who Joe DiMaggio introduced him to, for more than 64 years. The world of baseball has a heavy heart today & the flag at Cooperstown was lowered to half-staff, a laurel was placed around his plaque, & thousands will tip their cap to him in today’s games.


Here's his voice one last time...