WHEN I shook Phil Rizzuto’s hand for the final time, last September, he leaned over and told me the secret to his wonderful baseball life.
“It’s all about family,” he said.
That’s all you needed to know about the Scooter, who was blessed to have a Yankees family, as a broadcaster and as a Hall of Fame player, and his own beautiful family: lovely wife Cora; daughters Cindy, Patricia and Penny; and son Scooter.
Patricia told me yesterday that her father passed peacefully at 11 o’clock Monday night from pneumonia.
“It’s like he was asleep,” she said.
Said Cora, “I’ve lost my beautiful prince.”
They were married 64 years and still acted like newlyweds.
Once you walked in the door of the Rizzuto household, you were considered family. Spencer Lader, owner of Authentic Memorabilia, said Rizzuto had one request before the deal to auction off his memorabilia became final.
“You got to give me a hug and a kiss,” Rizzuto told Lader.
Lader said, “I’ve met many, many, many athletes, and I’ve never met a nicer person than Phil Rizzuto.”
When they went down into the basement, Rizzuto pulled out a garbage can stuffed with bats. The first bat he grabbed happened to be a Joe DiMaggio game-used bat.
“Holy Cow, Cora!” Phil yelled. “Come down here and look at this.”
The family parted with many keepsakes last November, including Rizzuto’s 1950 MVP trophy, but there was one thing Phil refused to part with: a pair of spikes given to him by Mickey Mantle as a gift for the new baby, Scooter. The numbers 6 and 7 were written in the spikes. Those were Mantle’s first Yankees spikes.
Phil loved Mickey, who often went to Phil and Cora’s house for a relaxing pasta dinner. Mickey once said that, most of all, Phil would be remembered as a nice guy.
He was that and much more. He was everyone’s baseball uncle, and that’s because 40 years of Yankees fans watched games with him every night, at least until it was time to leave early and head across the George Washington Bridge and back home. For Rizzuto, that was the real paradise by the dashboard light.
“I remember listening to him growing up,” Brian Cashman said yesterday. “Phil was a great Yankee in so many ways.”
Yogi Berra would visit Phil every other Wednesday and watch the Yankees with him, forever championship teammates.
Rizzuto had such a desire to be a major leaguer that when he signed his first contract he put down 1917 as his year of birth, to appear younger and more of a prospect, instead of 1916. He really was 90, not 89.
Those who watched him play shortstop knew he truly belonged in the Hall of Fame. Ted Williams was instrumental in getting Rizzuto elected. Slide in the DVD of Yankees World Series highlights and you see Scooter, always hustling, always trying to out-think his opponent.
You see a winner, all 5 feet, 6 inches of him.
Watch the ’47 World Series and see Rizzuto tag out Jackie Robinson when Robinson over-slides second base. See Rizzuto leg out a double on a pop fly that drops in front of the left fielder. See Scooter get two huge hits in the Game 7 win and the final two outs of the Series as he turns a double play with quickness and precision.
That turned out to be the second of seven World Series rings won by Rizzuto.
In 1950, even though the Yankees’ lineup boasted DiMaggio and Berra, Rizzuto was named AL MVP with a .324 average, 92 walks, 125 runs scored and a league-leading 19 sacrifice hits.
“He could have been MVP in ’49, too,” second base and broadcast partner Jerry Coleman said. “I don’t ever recall Phil missing a ball. If he made an error, it was the throw. His range and his skill were amazing, and he would hang in on the double play. The runners would always try to get him, but they never got him. It was wonderful.”
All part of the Scooter’s wonderful and complete baseball life.