Scooted

In news that adds extra shine to even a Yankee blowout loss, Phil Rizzuto, until Tuesday the oldest and least deserving living Hall of Famer, died at the age of 89 of pneumonia. Nicknamed the Scooter for his speed on the bases and in the field, Rizzuto was a slap-hitting, slick fielding shortstop for the great New York Yankee teams of the 1940s and 1950s, thus inflating his worth far beyond how he’d be regarded had he played in any other city. His career was almost over before he started, as in one tryout, Casey Stengel dismissed the 5-4, 150 pounder telling him to “Go get a shoeshine box.” Rizzuto got his revenge years later by beating the hell out of Stengel with two boyhood friends, throwing him in a trunk and dumping his body… wait, sorry, wrong shoebox story. He played 13 full seasons in the majors, made the All-Star Game just 5 times, and only earned two starts as the best shortstop in his league. He won the 1950 American League MVP in part for scoring 125 runs for a team that scored almost 6 a game. Even the Yankees, a team that retires numbers like they’re infinite, didn’t see fit to hang up his number 10 until 1985, 29 years after he played his last game. He was named to the Hall of Fame in 1994, after being passed over for 15 years by the baseball writers and another 11 by the Veterans Committee before pity settled in. Rizzuto also developed a reputation as a quirky broadcaster, known for bellowing Holy Cow! at the drop of a hat, two-out innings, when his rambling stories took precedence over game action and he neglected to inform viewers that a batter had grounded out to short and innings suddenly ended, and for being on the bridge to Jersey before the 7th inning was over. An unapologetic Yankee rooter in the booth, in 1978 Rizzuto wrapped a broadcast by announcing that Pope Paul VI had died, concluding, “Well, that kind of puts the damper on even a Yankee win.” Rizzuto worked his way into pop culture with the play-by-play section of Meat Loaf’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Lights,” and as the voice of the Money Store, a gig he lost when someone noticed you could see the reflection of the cue cards in Rizzuto’s glasses.

Three of us expected Rizzuto to be petting the holy cows and score 6.66666667 points a piece: James moves into 8th with my The Family Plot Thickens close behind in 9th and Joe’s Drop Dead, Gorgeous climbs into 30th.

And yay to us, with the hit, we set a new record with 38 hits and set a new slugging percentage record (total hits divided by total selections) at 34%.