Just yesterday I was reading the wikipedia article on Scooter, never knew how many World Series he was a part of. Truly a great player, awesome contact hitter and master of the bunt as well as being a legendary broadcaster. Maybe know he can meet that pious bovine he was always referencing.
Some quotes in response to Rizzuto's passing. The Yankees got pasted today by the Orioles, and I think it was almost a more fitting tribute than a Yankee victory would have been. The Yanks got blown out a lot during the Rizzuto broadcast era, and those were the games when his eccentric broadcast style stepped most strongly to the forefront. In games like today's, as the Yanks fell further and further behind, Rizzuto pulled out more good luck birthdays and anniversaries, and broke into more of his irrelevant diatribes about garlic pills, Italian bakeries, old baseball stories, and on and on. He made games like tonight's so much more tolerable. Good lord, do I ever miss him.
In games like today's, as the Yanks fell further and further behind, Rizzuto pulled out more good luck birthdays and anniversaries, and broke into more of his irrelevant diatribes about garlic pills, Italian bakeries, old baseball stories, and on and on exactly. he also would've on the bridge by the 8th inning. i got choked up during the moment of silence and the video tributes at the Stadium. we also included Scooter in roll call tonight. i guess it sounds silly to be emotional over someone I've never met, but like i said before, i probably spent more time listening to his broadcasts than i did with some memebers of my own family.
he was a great man that people would listen to the gmae just to hear is voice. I will miss him along with many other fans
we also included Scooter in roll call tonight. That is awesome. Work ended up keeping me from the TV tributes tonight, but Sterling and Waldman had plenty of opportunities to share Rizzuto stories tonight. What impressed me the most was Sterling's knowledge of the broadcast rotation in the '70s. Bill White, Frank Messer and Rizzuto would rotate every three innings, with two on TV and one on radio. Sterling confirmed what I had long suspected, but was slow to state publicly since I only heard him as a child and had nobody to which I could compare him -- he said that Rizzuto put aside all the frivolities when he was on the radio and broadcast the game as well as any radio broadcaster, giving all the detail necessary to the viewer. i guess it sounds silly to be emotional over someone I've never met As someone who did meet him several times, I can say it was not really necessary to evoke that kind of response. The man you heard was 100% the man he was in person -- there was no act. If you met him, you would feel as though you had done so many times before.
I never got a chance to hear him do a game on TV or the radio, due to location. However, after reading some of the links provided by you guys on this thread, It appears that I have missed one of baseballs best ever. His HOF induction speech says plenty about him as a person. I am very sorry for the loss that all of you Yankee fans, and the Rizzuto family have experienced.
I spent my childhood wishing that just once there could've been a way to pair him up with Ralph Kiner in the booth, perhaps for a Mayor's Trophy Game. R.I.P. -- to Phil and another chunk of my youth.
I can remember hearing Scooter calling the game and sounding like he was talking just to me. I have never been a Yankees fan but I sure as hell was a huge Phil Rizzuto fan. My favorite Scooter moment didn't really even involve him. It was on an episode of 'Seinfeld' where George Costanza had a keychain of a Phil Rizzuto doll that would say "Holy Cow" and he got it buried under a pothole while a construction crew were working. Great episode. .
I was lucky enough to have met Rizzuto while in Oakland several years back. I was young, and he was still doing games with Messer and White, and when he came outside, everyone was running around for autographs from all these other clowns, and they didn't recognize Rizzuto. Phil laughed about it, but we didn't mind a bit. It gave us a chance to spend a few minutes with him, talking about where we were from (he knew where it was, of course), and other things. Just a nice, nice guy, and it's sad he's gone. A great spokesman for the game of baseball.
