PHIL RIZZUTO 1917-2007"Heaven must have needed a shortstop"
George Steinbrenner
When I was growing up in New Jersey, I was a huge Yankee fan, and one of those who really thought of Phil Rizzuto as just that silly old guy who did the Yankees games. I had just moved from Ohio where I used to listen to the incomparable Marty Brenneman (along with his homer sidekick, Joe Nuxhall), and "Scooter" just seemed silly, but harmless, and on occasion funny.
When I was in high school, there was enormous debate about whether Rizzuto should be in the Hall of Fame, and I confess I was one who thought there was no way. And I'm not sure to this day the Veterans Committee got it right, or whether Yogi Berra, and the rest of the Yankees (and a not so subtle message from Ted Williams of all people) of Rizzuto's day flexed their considerable muscle to get him in. Regardless he's in, and I never thought much about it.
Of course today as I was getting dressed I heard on the news that Rizzuto had died - and I was reminded of the great line (although used in an entirely different context) from Johnny Ola in The Godfather II - "One by one, our old friends are gone." I sort of felt as if one more icon (in the real sense - meaning image or symbol) of my childhood was gone. I puttered through my day, again letting the thought go.
Then I spoke with a co-worker who told me a very touching story, about what fanhood means, and why on some level people who aren't fans of baseball will never get why it holds significance for those who follow it. My friend is Italian, grew up in Northern Ohio, and his father (as he is) was a huge Yankee fan, and his favorite shortstop was Rizzuto - makes perfect sense. He told me his father always believed Rizzuto deserved to be in the Hall of Fame, and was disappointed when year after year, Scooter was turned down. My friend told me that the day he buried his father, the news finally came that Scooter got in - and that was what made him break down that day, knowing his father would have loved the news. And this is why baseball is so important to so many - no matter the changes, the eras, the pace of the game and the world, baseball binds fathers and sons, childhood to childhood memories, it is, as James Earl Jones said in Field of Dreams, "They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again."
Rest in Peace, Scooter
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