RIP: Phil "The Scooter" Rizzuto

For Yankee fans growing up in the late 70s and 1980s, the Scooter was one of the voices of the Yankees, who became famous for his call "Holy Cow." Fans of Meatloaf would recognize his game calling during the song Paradise by the Dashboard Light.

Some of my favorite moments were listening to him calling games during the 1978 season, when the Yanks came back against the Red Sox and eventually won the World Series. He was funny, witty, and his malaprops were almost as legendary as his Yankee teammate Yogi Berra's.

Born Fiero Francis Rizzuto in Brooklyn on Sept. 25, 1916, Rizzuto was the son of a streetcar motorman.

Nicknamed "The Scooter," Rizzuto, at the time of his death, was the oldest living member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, having been inducted in 1994 by a Veterans Committee vote.


Rizzuto was selected by the New York Yankees as an amateur free agent in 1937. He played his first major-league game on April 14, 1941. He played for the Yankees for his entire 13-year career, almost exclusively as a shortstop. Like many baseball players, his career was interrupted by a stint in the United States Navy during World War II. From 1943 through 1945, he played on the Navy's baseball team.

Rizzuto was voted Most Valuable Player by a large margin in the American League in 1950, and was the runner-up for the award in 1949. He played in five All-Star Games, in 1942 and each year from 1950 to 1953. In 1950, he won the Hickok Belt, awarded to the top professional athlete of the year.

Rizzuto's 1953 Topps baseball card read in part: "Ty Cobb named the "Scooter" as one of the few modern ball players who could hold his own among old timers."

His Yankees jersey, #10, was retired in 1985. When his playing career ended, Rizzuto stepped into the broadcasters' booth, where he covered the Yankees for 40 years, from 1957 to 1996. He was often incapable of constructing a proper sentence, but fans came to love his stream-of-consciousness commentary.

Like Harry Caray, Rizzuto's catch phrase as a broadcaster was "Holy cow!" Rizzuto often beat the traffic by leaving the ball park in the game's late innings, announcing on-air for his wife, "I'll be home soon, Cora" as he left the booth.

He will be missed.

UPDATE:
Here are his lifetime statistics, and photo added.