Meandering Thoughts: Phil Rizzuto, 1917-2007

Phil Rizzuto died today at the age of 89.

Without being too melodramatic about it, Rizzuto was a major voice of my childhood. I grew up in the Bronx, ten subway stops away from Yankee Stadium. While my dad wasn’t really a Yankees fan per se, he and I shared a love of baseball, and so it was inevitable that we would spin the dial on our television to WPIX, Channel 11, and watch Yankees games.

It was the voice of Phil Rizzuto, supplemented by the gentlemanly Bill White, who would serve as the primary descriptor of some pretty terrible Yankees teams. I don’t know if many folks from my area would have had the love affair they had with the Yankees were it not for him, in fact. His nasal tenor voice, suffused with streetwise Italian affectation, and general good humor made it easier for kids like me to appreciate the play of otherwise-lackluster players like Alvaro Espinoza, Paul Zuvella, Steve Balboni, and Wayne Tolleson.

A lot of people will no doubt, in paying tribute to the man that the Yankees lovingly referred to as “The Scooter” (to the point where the mascot of the short-season Single ! Staten Island Yankees farm team is Scooter “the holy” Cow), refer to Rizzuto’s many malaprops in the broadcasting booth – the man would often say things like, “Nobody’s going to get to that ball, holy cow, he got it.” You know what? Things like that may not have been “accurate,” but they genuinely reflected the thoughts of the average baseball fan. The Scooter was good like that – he’d ask dumb questions, get confused sometimes, and would contradict himself – but isn’t that really just human nature? He gave voice to the average baseball fan, and will forever be adored for that.

Other things that are relevant about Phil Rizzuto: he was the 1950 American League MVP, he was the key shortstop on the Yankees championship teams of the fifties, he is in the Baseball Hall of Fame (in one of the most debated inductions in the game’s history), and the Yankees retired his number. He (allegedly inadvertently) provided play-by-play for a young man’s amorous affections in Meat Loaf’s classic song “Paradise By The Dashboard Light,” and the spelling of his name in the movie “Billy Madison” showed that Adam Sandler’s titular character had no idea how to write a script z. I’m not going to pay too much attention to those details; I never saw the man play, and the rest of it kind of speaks for itself.

I will say this – I will miss that voice. I mean, he hasn’t broadcasted for more than ten years, and I’ve missed that voice. I mean, for years, it was well known that Rizzuto would leave each game he’d broadcast in the seventh inning so that he could beat the traffic over the George Washington Bridge heading back to his home in New Jersey. Anyone else would have been raked over the coals for this, but for Rizzuto, this was an eccentricity that only led to people loving him more.

Rizzuto may not have been the most erudite, booksmart person to have ever stepped behind a microphone, but he made up for it by being endearing and sweet. His was a distinctive voice, and will always remind me of a time when I would sit and watch baseball with my dad and only have to worry about whether my homework was done.

Rest in peace, Scooter.