Great ballplayer with a cannon for an arm.
OT: RIP Rocky Colavito
- Thread starter wisr01
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Great ballplayer with a cannon for an arm.
He actually pitched a couple of relief innings with the Yanks in '68. Nothing but fast balls.
Old article on players with arms. My favorite was the Reading Rifle.
My father served with his brother (Vito Colavito) in Japan.
I was there that day. First time I went to the stadium. Yanks-Tigers Doubleheader. Rocky ended up getting a win.
I believe it wasn't until the 90's that another position player got a decision.
I'm not sure what part of Japan. My father was lucky. He was stationed his entire time in occupied Japan. Went in just after WWII and got out just before the Korean war.
For the longest time, Rocky was my favorite player after the NY Giants left and whatever team he played for was my favorite team.
The Dodgers and Yankees were on my do not like list ( I refused to admit Yogi was better than Gus Triandos or Sherm Lollar ) and when the Giants left their players were added to the not as good as list when comparing players
I turned to Rocky as the player I liked the most and he was better than the Mick or the Say Hey Kid until 1968 when he became a hated Dodger then went on to become a damm Yankee
When I played ( pick-up not organized) baseball I imitated his move with the bat holding in the back before getting ready to hit.
Didn't do me no good I was a no hit no field 0 tool player .
But enough about me.
RIP Rocky , you were my idol
As @MADHAT1 says, Colavito would flex his bat behind his shoulders before coming to bat. I saw it many times on WPIX when the Indians (or later the Tigers) played the Yankees. @MADHAT1 may also remember that Triandos and Lollar were Yankees early in their career --but there was a guy named Berra playing in front of them, and Elston Howard's emergence as Berra's backup made Triandos and Lollar superfluous.
Howard proved to be better then the one I thought would take over from Yogi
Johnny Blanchard.
Howard came up years before Blanchard did: while Blanchard had a cup of coffee in 1955, he wasn't really a Yankee until 1959. Howard was the established back-up by then. Howard was the American League MVP (the first black player to win that honor) in 1963, the last year Berra played.
It was Blanchard's misfortune to be behind the plate in the 9th inning of the 1960 World Series when Bill Mazeroski homered over the left field wall to win the Series for the Pirates. He received a lot of hate mail.
Howard died of heart disease at only 51.
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You may remember he was known as Trader Frank. He once traded managers with the Tigers; he dealt Joe "Flash" Gordon for Jimmy Dykes.
Kuenn was the reigning batting average champion. But he was known to be injury-prone, and, unlike Colavito, he was not a power hitter. Lane should have known better but it had been difficult to sign Colavito the preceding winter. Teams threatened to trade players all the time to get them to sign -- the Yankees came close to trading a guy named Mickey Mantle during a tussle about salary.
