Around The Horn

Moses Fleetwood Walker
Major League stats:
Year Ag Lg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG
1884 27 AA 42 152 23 40 2 3 0 0 0 8 0 .263 .325 .316

Moses Fleetwood Walker was born, the son of one of Ohio’s first black doctors, on October 7, 1856. Many happy hours of his childhood were spent watching the Union soldiers play baseball in the fields. Walker attended Oberlin College in Ohio. Fleetwood and his brother Welday helped establish baseball as a varsity sport. He left Oberlin and went to the University of Michigan. There Fleetwood starred in baseball where he was wildly popular with the fans who came to call him “the wonder.” Like other catchers of the day, Fleetwood played without a glove or protective gear. In an exhibition game in the summer of 1883, Fleet had his first run-in with Cap Anson, the National League’s most influential player. After arriving in Toledo with his Chicago team, Anson announced that he would not play with Fleet in the lineup. The Blue Stockings manager had originally planned to rest his catcher. But when served with this boorish ultimatum, he decided to start Fleet in rightfield—daring Anson to walk away from his split of the gate receipts. The game was held as scheduled, with the White Stockings winning 7-6.

Toledo joined the fledgling American Association for the 1884 season. Known as baseball’s “beer and whiskey” league, the two-year-old AA was one of three major leagues operating in ’84. Despite an unprecedented need for top-flight talent in professional baseball, Fleet was the only dark-skinned competitor in the majors when the year began. He made his debut on May 1, 1884—in Louisville, ironically enough. Two days later, Fleet got his first major-league hit, a single, in that same city. Later in the season, he was joined by Weldy, who became history’s second black major leaguer. Against the world’s top baseball competition, Fleet more than measured up. A crackerjack bare-handed catcher who possessed a shotgun arm, he proved a dependable singles hitter. His batting average in 1884 was .263, a full 23 points above the league mark. Tony Mullane the team’s best pitcher revealed years later that he disliked taking signals from his black catcher. In turn, Fleet caught most of the year without knowing the speed, location or spin of the hurler’s deliveries. The result was an appalling number of passed balls, and an assortment of injuries, including a broken rib. On many days, Fleet hurt too much to play, and on others he could only take an outfield position. When a newspaper ridiculed him as “the coon catcher,” The Sporting News came to his defense: “It is a pretty small paper that will publish a paragraph of that kind about a member of a visiting club, and the man who wrote it is without doubt Walker’s inferior in education, refinement, and manliness.” Teammates were not all supportive. The league included players who openly acknowledged playing halfheartedly behind black pitchers, and umpires that bragged of making calls against black ballplayers, and against the teams that employed them. In September Fleet had already left the club, due to injuries, when a group of Richmond fans sent the Toledo manager a note :

“We the undersigned do hereby warn you not to put up Walker, the Negro catcher, the evening that you play in Richmond, as we could mention the names of 75 determined men who have sworn to mob Walker if he comes to the ground in a suit. We hope you listen to our words so that there will be trouble, but if you do not here certainly will be. We only write this to prevent much bloodshed, as you alone can prevent.” promising to “mob Walker” and “much bloodshed” if Fleet were to take the field in uniform.

We will never know if a lynch mob would have met Walker because he was injured prior to the Richmond series and he was through for the season. He suffered a broken rib when he was struck by a tipped foul ball.

Fleet hooked up with Newark, of the prestigious International League, in 1887. There he joined forces with pitcher George Washington Stovey, to form the first all-Negro battery in white baseball. 1887 proved to be an opportune season for black players, as seven men of color appeared on six teams. That year, on July 14, the “Father of Apartheid Baseball,” Adrian “Cap” Anson threatened Newark officials to bench Walker and Stovey, or forfeit the game. It was here that Anson shouted his infamous remarks, “Get that nigger off the field, there’s a law against that!” Anson, an excellent player and future Hall of Famer, had clout on and off the field. That very day all the owners got together after Cap told John Ward not to ever sign another man of color. The next day league officials of the American Association and the National League announced that teams would not be allowed to hire black players in the future, because of the “hazards” black players imposed. This was the day that the “gentlemen’s agreement” was made by all the owners of the game. The color curtain was in place for the next sixty years. Like any revolutionary when the battle is lost, Fleet became moody and disillusioned. In 1888 in Toronto (where the previous year the crowd had chanted “Kill the Nigger” at Frank Grant) he greeted jeering fans with a loaded revolver and offered to “put a hole in someone.” The following year injuries and politics took their final toll and Fleetwood Walker’s baseball career was over at the age of 33, just because of one man with racism and power, Cap Anson.

But the bigotry that had greeted Fleetwood at every turn refused to be shaken. A handsome, proud, intelligent black man looked like a target to too many, and in April, 1891 Fleetwood was accosted by an angry group of whites as he past a bar on his way home from church in Syracuse. . True to form Fleetwood refused to back down and in the ensuing struggle one of the mob was fatally stabbed in the groin. After pleading self-defense to second degree murder charges, Fleetwood was acquitted at trial, leading Sporting Life to report that “immediately a shout of approval, accompanied by clapping of hands and stamping of feet, rose from the spectators.” Once again the general public backed Fleetwood like it did back when he was banned in Louisville. After the trial Walker and his family moved back to Steubenville where he served as a railway mail clerk and continued to drink. In 1898 he was arrested for mail robbery and spent one year in jail.

Next came his innovative and his inventive years. Fleetwood, again accompanied by Welday, undertook a successful foray into the world of commerce, opening a hotel and then owning and managing several movie theaters, and finally an opera house. Fleet’s creative approach resulted in his patenting several inventions having to do with motion picture cameras and industry. He received a patent for a dynamite artillery shell that exploded on impact. Mr. Walker’s shell became out-of-date within ten years when a new invention, a rapid-fire gun, took its place.

He launched a newspaper, The Equator, in which he expounded on his feelings of alienation. In 1908 he published “Our Home Colony,” a volume setting forth his conclusions. “The only practical and permanent solution of the present and future race troubles in the United States is entire separation by Emigration of the Negro from America,” he wrote, “Even forced Emigration would be better for all than the continued present relations of the races.” Walker remained an angry man, and in 1908 became a racial theorist, publishing Our Home Colony: The Past, Present, and Future of the Negro Race in America. In this volume, Walker advocated black immigration to Africa as the answer to white racism in America. Moses showed considerable self-hatred directed toward the mulatto. The divided heart of Walker was evident in that, at the same time he was penning a volume advocating racial separatism, he was purchasing an opera house in Cadiz, Ohio, where for the next 15 years he provided film and live entertainment (including minstrel shows) for racially mixed audiences. In 1922, he sold the opera house and moved to Cleveland, dying two years later. At the time of his death, the ambitious Walker was working as a clerk in a billiards parlor. Concluding that Walker remained a divided man until the end of his life, Zang writes, “As a black separatist he was a man who could not abide white society’s shunning of merit but could never bring himself to actually separate from white society”

Most of this article was taken from the book “Fleet Walker’s Divided Heart: The Life of Baseball’s First Black Major Leaguer.” By David W. Zang.

I am
The Fan’s Commish
Rick Swanson

He was the last of the first. The first black player on the last team to integrate — the 1959 Boston Red Sox. Below is a good chunk of his story, in an excerpt from Frommer’s new book, Where Have All Our Red Sox Gone?

He was born Elijah Jerry Green October 27, 1933 in Oakland, California, and grew up in Richmond, California, where baseball was a natural part of life. All the kids in his area, the young and old, men and women, everybody played baseball. “Pumpsie” was the nickname his mother gave him when he was a couple of years old.

In 1948, Jackie Robinson barnstorming with an all-star team, played a ball game at the Oakland Oaks’ ballpark.

PUMPSIE GREEN: I scraped up every nickel and dime together that I could, and I was there. I had to see this game with the Jackie Robinson All Stars. They were all black — Suitcase Simpson, Minnie Minoso, and the others. They played an Oakland team that was put together specially for that occasion.

I never thought of playing pro ball. To me, baseball was just a game to play and have fun with. That was all. I used to see this big picture of Stan Musial on the side of the highway in the neighborhood. That was just about the only association I had with major league baseball. But the Pacific Coast League was really big. I listened to Bud Foster doing every Oakland Oaks game and followed a whole bunch of people on that team. It was almost a daily ritual. When I got old enough to wish, I wished I could play for the Oakland Oaks.

We had a good high school team, coached by a man named Gene Corr, who went on to become the baseball coach at Contra Costa Junior College after my sophomore year. When I was getting set to graduate from high school, I planned to go to Fresno State, which offered me an athletic scholarship. But Gene Corr promised me that I could play shortstop if I joined his team at Contra Costa, so I switched plans and went there. In my senior year at Contra Costa, I was given a tryout by the Oakland Oaks. I tried out with the team for a week. The workouts were staged before the regular team did its exercises. Then, when the game started, Gene Corr and I would sit in the stands and watch the games.

The people in charge of the Oaks finally came to a decision about me. It was just sign and play ball. Oakland was an independent team, so there was no draft as far as I was concerned. I got no bonus, just a regular salary of three or four hundred dollars a month. But unfortunately, I never got a chance to play with Oakland. There was a stop in Oakland’s minor leagues with Wenatchee, Washington. In 1955, I was moved up to Stockton, California.

It was June. We were in first place. I was having a great year. Then one day my manager Roy Partee said: “Hey, Pumps, the Red Sox bought your contract. You are going to their organization, to Montgomery, Alabama.”

I did not want to go. I wasn’t ready for it. One of the reasons Boston wanted me to go to Montgomery was that Earl Wilson, the only black in their organization, was there. They wanted me to be his roommate. I managed to get permission to finish out the season with Stockton and was named the Most Valuable Player in the California State League. I hit about .300, and drove in about eighty-something runs.

In 1956, I went to spring training with the Red Sox in Florida. I was street-smart and knew I could take care of myself. But any young black in those days going to the South had some kind of feelings. California was an integrated experience. There were some problems, but there weren’t signs all over the place about where blacks and whites could go, like there were in Florida.

I roomed all by myself. I knew that all the major league teams had been integrated except for the Red Sox. People made me aware. They wouldn’t let me forget it. I did not think of myself as another Jackie Robinson, as a pioneer with the Red Sox. I just wanted to make the team. As long as I had that chance, I was going to try and do the best I could. It got to be sort of tiring when the media kept asking me questions about being the first black on the Red Sox and what it meant to me, and what was my opinion as to why Boston had never had a black player before.

I met all the guys, including Ted Williams, at Spring Training, and they acted fine to me. I had the best spring training of anyone on the whole team, including Ted Williams. Yet, after such a great spring, I was sent down to Minneapolis. That caused a lot of writing in the newspaper, and that was when I got tired of it all. People were asking me too many questions about things I had no control over. I told them: “You are asking the wrong person.”

They kept me in Minneapolis until 1959. That year I was having a great year, hitting about .330 or .340. On July 21, I got a call. The Red Sox wanted me to report to Chicago. I suddenly became weak. I had to sit down quick. I just couldn’t believe the news. My legs felt as if they’d collapsed. I packed in a hurry…and was landing in Chicago two hours after I received the phone call.

I had a little laugh walking out this long dungeonway in Comiskey Park. Passing the White Sox dugout, I saw an old junior college and high school baseball teammate, Jim Landis. He yelled, “Hey, El Cerrito. You have a good season.”

My major league debut for Boston was on July 21, 1959. I came in as a pinch-runner and remained in the game to play shortstop. We lost the game 2-1 to the White Sox. I will never forget my first at bat. I faced a guy who really shook me up. His name was Early Wynn. I had seen him on television pitching in the World Series. He had a big name. It was near the end of his career and the start of mine.

There was more media pressure than ever. I was trying to make it as a player and as the first black man on the Red Sox. I had no roommate. It never crossed my mind to have a roommate, since I was the only black on the team. It wasn’t a rule. It wasn’t a law. But it was unwritten that blacks did not room with whites.

The Red Sox got me a room in a hotel. I didn’t even know if I had to pay for it or not. I got to meet Mr. Yawkey the second day that I was in Boston. He was a very gentle, short, round man. He told me why he called me up, said he wanted to get to know me, and wished me well. “If you run into any problems or need any advice on something, you don’t have to go to the coaches or manager. Come directly to me,” he said. I thanked him, and we shook hands.

My first night in Boston was July 24. Fenway Park just felt small because it is small. Even Minneapolis, where I played for two years, seemed bigger. There was now more media pressure than ever. The first night I got to Fenway there was such a crowd, the park was full. A lot of blacks wanted to come to the game. They didn’t have a seat, but they were accommodated. The Red Sox roped off a corner part of centerfield. The whole thing made me feel special, but it made my blood pressure go up, too. “I can’t fail. I can’t make a mistake.” That was how I felt.

When I first got to Boston, I got in touch with guys from the University of San Francisco — Bill Russell and K.C. Jones — who were stars on the Boston Celtics. Russ would take me around and talk to me. He told me where I should and shouldn’t go.

Around the first of September, the Red Sox flew my wife up to Boston. That made things a lot easier for me. We had been married since 1957. I had good friends on that team — Pete Runnels, Frank Malzone. Jackie Jensen and also Ted Williams were friends and fellow Californians. Williams warmed up with me before every game. Some people said he was making a statement. But it wasn’t just he who befriended me; it was he and a bunch of the guys. I had some good friends on the Red Sox when I was there. It was just that after the ball diamond, they went their way and I went my way.

I was able to function, I really was. Some of the pressure and nervousness I put on myself. I know the people expected a lot, especially the black community, which wanted me to do good.

I roomed with no one until Earl Wilson came along. There was an unwritten rule, and that was the way it was. You get used to certain things; rooming by yourself, being by yourself. It was a way of life back then.

There were overtones of racial things. These overtones could be heard not only at Fenway but at any other ballpark. Sometimes terrible things would be yelled out, racial epithets. Some people said I must have felt like killing somebody. However, I never did. I got where I could divorce it from my mind, cut it off. I told people I had enough troubles trying to hit the curveball. I wasn’t going to worry about some loudmouths.

Truly, I didn’t have the kind of career that I would have loved to have had. I was used as a pinch runner or day-off replacement for infielders mostly. I played four seasons, 1959-62, for the Red Sox. My last game was September 26, 1963. I was 29 years old and had moved on to play a bit for the New York Mets. I didn’t know Boston was going to trade me. You go to sleep one night and wake up the next morning with somebody else.

Still, if I had it to do all over again, I would do the same thing. I never thought about the major leagues at all. I would have been happy just to have had the chance to play for the Oakland Oaks.

I have gotten cards and letters, people wanting autographs, phone calls and people bothering me through the years wanting to talk. It has been a bother and a thrill; a combination of both.

After I finished playing major league baseball, I went back to California, went back to being a regular working man. I worked for the school district in Berkeley. I coached the baseball team for about 25 years, taught math for awhile. And then I did a lot of nothing.

I have done card shows, talks to youth groups, lots and lots of interviews. People have not forgotten me. Every February is “Black History Month,” and that means I am onstage; one of the people there to talk to the kids.

I have grown children. For my children growing up, they really did not realize that I had broken the color bar with the Red Sox.
For my contemporaries, what I did was a big deal. But a lot of young kids never heard of me. Just like a lot of young kids never heard of Willie Mays. But when there are people who know what I did and their eyes are bright and they want to talk to me, it makes me feel good.

I have seen some players from my Red Sox time because I have been back to Boston more than once. I have seen Frank Malzone, Bill Monbouquette, and the late Dick Radatz. I never got around to exchanging Christmas cards. My roommate, Earl Wilson, who passed in 2005, I used to exchange cards with him.

I keep up with baseball; the Red Sox, the Giants. Those are two I root for. Since I am near the Giants, I watch them more. I like New England but I am really a California guy.

There’s really nothing that interesting about me. I am just an everyday person happy with what I did. Now I am in the twilight of what was a sometimes wonderful career. A lot of people ask me if I am “that guy.” Of course, I say “yes.” But fame is fleeting.

I have been married to the same wife all these years. Almost 50 years. She was there with me in Boston a couple of summers. Every once in awhile the two of us talk about those times.

It has made me feel good when I have returned to Boston. Just that I have been there before and that I accomplished what I had set out to do. I did what I wanted to do and I don’t see anything bad about anything.

I would like to be remembered in Red Sox history as just another ball player. Aside from being the last of the first, just another ball player.

Nowadays, I am retired from baseball coaching. I am retired from my job. I am retired from everything except chauffeuring my granddaughter, s pending time with my granddaughter Brittany. There are a whole bunch of good things that we do.

I spend time now at the YMCA where I have heck of a lot of workouts with a bunch of guys. We meet there every morning. I take a lot of pride in having played for the Red Sox. I will always keep an eye on the Red Sox.

HF

Harvey Frommer is now in his 32nd. consecutive year of writing sports books. His “Old Time Baseball” will be published in 2006. He is the author of 38 sports books, including the classics: “New York City Baseball,” “Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball,” “Rickey and Robinson,” “A Yankee Century,” and “Red Sox Vs. Yankees: The Great Rivalry” (with Frederic J. Frommer). Frommer sports books are available direct from the author - discounted and autographed.

More than 25 players have dropped out of the WBC. The umpires have boycotted these games. Each day more players drop out. Should Bud pull the plug on this experiment? Is there any way these games can be saved? Drastic measures need to be taken. Bud will soon announce, that in order to speed up the game, and to save all pitcher’s arms, each batter will step to the plate with a one ball and one strike count. People will then start to wonder if this fast forward game will be better to watch. Instead of 3 hour plus games, they would all finish under 2 hours. Batters would step up and swing the bat, instead of taking pitches all the time. The other marketing tool MLB needs is to change the name of it to the World Cup of Baseball, then people in foreign lands will be interested. The fact that teams are refusing to let players go is another reason to evaluate this event. What if the whole thing is put on hold until the end of the season, and games start in November instead of March? Just because Roger wants to pitch for USA now is not enough reason to go through with this experiment at this time. Blame it on Manny, or Pedro, the umpire’s union, or even George Steinbrenner, but the undercurrent is too strong to play these games this March. Play the WCB in November and let each team have the same chance this spring.

I am
The Fan’s Commish
Rick Swanson

Weighing in at 286 pages with 350 eye catching photographs taken by Susan Einstein and priced at just $29.95, “Smithsonian Baseball” by Stephen Wong, Smithsonian Books/Collins - is a book you must put on a place of prominence in your library if you are a baseball fan.

Wong took almost three years researching the book to interview collectors and photograph their collections. The result is a fusion of 21 of the best baseball memorabilia collections in one source. Items include: a baseball autographed by each member of the 1927 Yankees, Roy Campanella’s MVP award trophy from 1955, the ball caught by Yogi Berra that closed out Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series, scorecards, game used bats and uniforms, program covers pennants, pins and buttons, seats, baseball cards, advertisements evoking other eras . . . all of this and more adorns the pages of “SMITHSONIAN BASEBALL: INSIDE THE WORLD’S PRVATE COLLECTIONS” - a most notable effort.

From Stewart, Tabori and Chang publishers at $14.95, 120 pages, comes “101 Reasons to Love the Cardinals” and “101 Reasons to Love the Cubs” from brothers Green, Ron, Jr. and David. In words and pictures the authors roller coaster ride us through decades of team history.

Bison Books (University of Nebraska Press) has three worthy paperback spring entries in “Blackout” ($15.00, 226 pages) by Chris Lamb, about the Untold Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Spring Training, “The Unforgettable Season” by G.H. Fleming ($15.00, 332 pages), a classic about the 1908 pennant race in the National League, and “Native Americans in Sport and Society” edited by Richard King ($26.95, 264 pages).

“Baseball Chicago Style” by Jerome Holzman and George Vass (Bonus Books, $14.95, 419 pages) by is a treat and a treatise on baseball in the windy city. Put together by Holzman and Vass, two deservedly acclaimed scribes, this is the kind of book to read slowly and from time to time to get your fill of the national pastime in the windy city. Excellent stuff.

HF

Harvey Frommer is now in his 32nd. consecutive year of writing sports books. His “Old Time Baseball” will be published in 2006. He is the author of 38 sports books, including the classics: “New York City Baseball,” “Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball,” “Rickey and Robinson,” “A Yankee Century,” and “Red Sox Vs. Yankees: The Great Rivalry” (with Frederic J. Frommer). Frommer sports books are available direct from the author - discounted and autographed.

“I’m excited,” Cashman said. “We’re two of the 29 teams that failed to win a championship last year, but spring is a time of renewed hope.”

The irony of that statement is that Brian Cashman gets to play under different rules than everyone else. The MLB basic agreement ends on December 19, 2006. How can any team except the Yankees think it is fair for them to have a payroll twice or more than the rest of the teams? All teams should have a spending cap, so that it is fair. When NY wastes money on Contreras or Vasquez, they just throw them away and spend more. The fact that Johnny Damon will cost them $18.5 million, when you include the luxury tax shows how unfair this system is. Baseball needs to have the same rules like other sports. Look how a football coach can move from NY to KC, and have an equal or better chance of winning, but if Cashman was GM of the Royals would he still be a genius? Baseball needs both a minimum and maximum on how much could be spent on salaries. In 2005 the average salary was $2,632,655 and if you multiply that by 750 the salary total for MLB is $1,974,491,500 for it to be equal each team would have to spend $65.8 million, but last year 18 teams spent less than the average, but one team the Yankees spent $7,391,168 for their average. Baseball has always adhered to the term “Hope springs eternal” and each spring it should be the hope of all fans that their team has an equal chance to win the championship each year. The way it is now, half the teams have given up before anyone says “Play ball.”

It is worth a strike in 2007 if it means all teams will finally have an equal chance of winning. End the Evil Empire’s regime of spending more than everyone else.

I am
The Fan’s Commish
Rick Swanson

The news that “the Scooter” is going to unload his vast collection of memorabilia has made a few headlines. Now 88, the legendary former Yankee shortstop is still capable of making headlines.

Hearing the news reminded me of an anecdote in the autobiography “Red on Red” which I co-authored with legendary New York Knickerbocker basketball coach Red Holzman. He tells the story of Phil Rizzuto coming over for dinner.

“Selma, my wife, was excited that a baseball celebrity would be our guest. So she went about planning a menu that she thought would appeal to him.
“Phil arrived. We had drinks. We settled down at the table. Selma served her appetizer tomato juice. ‘This stuff is thirst quenching,’ Selma said, ‘it’s a good way to start a meal.’

“Phil agreed and then went along as he was served a Spanish omelette stuffed with tomatoes and then tomato soup. ”

Rizzuto good naturedly ate everything up - his only complaint: “I just hope you don’t have tomato pie for dessert.”

Red Holzman never revealed to me whet the dessert that day was, but he had did have many kind things to say about Phil Rizzuto - as everyone else has. He was always a mench, but he had his odd ways, too.

As a minor leaguer, he was knocked down a couple of times by lightning, triggering some of his fears and superstitions which included closing his eyes when passing a cemetery to insure getting a hit that day, keeping a large wad of gum on the top of his cap to keep a winning streak going.

Ed Barrow said of Phil Rizzuto: “His signing cost me fifteen cents, ten cents for postage and five cents for a cup of coffee we gave him the day he worked out at the Stadium.”

“Being from New York, it meant a lot for me to play in my hometown,” Rizzuto said. “I knew every nook and cranny there, and we had the fans behind us. Back then, you had the monuments in the outfield and that was unbelievable.”

The first American Leaguer to wear a batting helmet, he was also among the first to bring his glove into the dugout between innings but that created problems for him. He was afraid of things that crawled, and a lot of those things somehow wound up in his glove, by chance and otherwise.

Ty Cobb referred to the likable little guy as “one of the best bunters of all time.” Casey Stengel went even further. “He’s the greatest shortstop I’ve ever seen. Honus Wagner was a better hitter, but I’ve seen this kid make plays Wagner never did.” He is in the top-20 Yankee list for games played, stolen bases, doubles, triples, at bats and runs scored.

But at the start there were doubts as he was rejected by both the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the New York Giants. Too small was the rap on him.

In 1941, Philip Francis Rizzuto replaced Frank Crosetti at shortstop for the Yankees and hit .307. The following season he was an All Star, the first of five times.

He may have been a bit of a nervous wreck - always stepping out of bed on the same side, always avoiding stepping on the baselines, always on the lookout for insects - but Phil Rizzuto was a durable, driven, an outstanding shortstop, a highly skilled bunter with a .273 lifetime batting average, the anchor of those teams who won nine pennants and seven World Series during his 13 Yankee seasons.

From 1949 to 1952, Rizzuto led the league in double plays and total chances three times, fielding and put-outs two times, assists one time and sacrifice hits all those years - an all time record.

The little shortstop’s best years were 1949-1950, a time where he was moved from down in the batting order to the leadoff slot. Scoring 110 runs, batting .275, walking 72 times, Rizzuto finished second in the MVP voting behind Ted Williams.

In 1950, a year he was the first mystery guest on the television program “What’s My Line”, he won the MVP, had a career-high 200 hits and .324 average was third in the league in doubles and second in runs scored. In 1951, Rizzuto was the World Series MVP.

After his brilliant playing career ended, Rizzuto spent 40 years as a Yankee broadcaster (1957-96). In his later years Rizzuto would only call the first 6 innings, and before the 7th inning stretch he was heading home over the George Washington Bridge.

On August 4, 1985, on Phil Rizzuto Day, his uniform number 10 was retired.

At long last after 28 years of eligibility and much frustration — (”I’ll go in even as a bat boy”) — Phil Rizzuto was finally elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994.

HF

Harvey Frommer is now in his 32nd. consecutive year of writing sports books. His “Old Time Baseball” will be published in 2006. He is the author of 38 sports books, including the classics: “New York City Baseball,” “Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball,” “Rickey and Robinson,” “A Yankee Century,” and “Red Sox Vs. Yankees: The Great Rivalry” (with Frederic J. Frommer). Frommer sports books are available direct from the author - discounted and autographed.