Phil Rizzuto - Honors

Honors

The Yankees retired Rizzuto's number 10 in a ceremony at Yankee Stadium on August 4, 1985. During this ceremony, he was also given a plaque to be placed in the stadium's Monument Park. The plaque makes reference to the fact that he "has enjoyed two outstanding careers, all-time Yankee shortstop, one of the great Yankee broadcasters." Humorously, Rizzuto was accidentally bumped to the ground during his own ceremony, by a live cow wearing a halo (that is, a "holy cow"); both honoree and cow were unhurt. Rizzuto later described the encounter: "That big thing stepped right on my shoe and pushed me backwards, like a karate move." In that day's game, future broadcast partner Tom Seaver recorded his 300th career victory.

Most baseball observers, including Rizzuto himself, came to believe that Derek Jeter had surpassed him as the greatest shortstop in Yankees history. The Scooter paid tribute to his heir apparent during the 2001 postseason at Yankee Stadium; jogging back to the Yankee dugout, he flipped the ceremonial baseball backhand, imitating Jeter's celebrated game-saving throw to home plate that had just occurred during the Yankees' 2001 American League Division Series triumph. ESPN reported that the photo of Jeter and Rizzuto taken that evening is one of Jeter's most prized possessions.

In the spring of 1957, following Rizzuto's release, Baltimore Orioles manager Paul Richards said, "Among those shortstops whom I have had the good fortune to see in action, it's got to be Rizzuto on top for career achievement. For a five-year period, I would have to take Lou Boudreau. ... But, year after year, season after season, Rizzuto was a standout." Sportswriter Dan Daniel wrote at the time, "It seems to me that Rizzuto must be included among the few players of the past five years who may look forward to ultimate election to the Hall of Fame." However, Daniel's assessment did not come to pass for over 35 years.

Rizzuto was elected to the Hall of Fame along with Leo Durocher (who was selected posthumously), in 1994 by the Veterans Committee, following a long campaign for Rizzuto's election by Yankee fans who were frustrated that he had not received the honor. Some of Rizzuto's peers supported his candidacy, including Boston's Ted Williams. Williams once claimed that his Red Sox would have won most of the Yankees' 1940s and 1950s pennants if they had had Rizzuto at shortstop, but Rizzuto himself was more modest: "My stats don't shout. They kind of whisper." The push for Rizzuto became especially acute after 1984, when the committee elected Pee Wee Reese, the similarly-regarded shortstop of the crosstown Brooklyn Dodgers.

Bill James later used Rizzuto's long candidacy as a recurring focus in his book Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?, devoting several chapters to the shortstop's career and comparisons with similar players. James assessed Rizzuto's career statistics as historically substandard by Hall of Fame standards, although he acknowledged that credit must be given for the years he missed in WWII, and criticized many of the public arguments both for and against his selection; but despite noting that Rizzuto was a great defensive player and a good hitter he stated that he could not endorse his candidacy, as there were too many similar players with virtually identical accomplishments. The book's final paragraph noted Rizzuto's election to the Hall in February 1994. James, however, did point out that there were numerous players in the Hall who were inferior to Rizzuto, and in 2001 he selected Rizzuto as the 16th greatest shortstop of all time, ahead of eight other Hall of Famers.

Rizzuto was modest about his achievements, saying, "I never thought I deserved to be in the Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame is for the big guys, pitchers with 100 mph fastballs and hitters who sock homers and drive in a lot of runs. That’s the way it always has been, and the way it should be."

Rizzuto gave a memorably discombobulated induction speech at Cooperstown, in which he repeatedly complained about the buzzing flies that were pestering him. Rizzuto's "inimitable and wondrous digressions and ramblings" were mimicked by New York Times columnist Ira Berkow:

• Anyway, somewhere in the speech (Rizzuto) told about leaving home in Brooklyn for the first time when he was 19 years old and going to play shortstop in the minor league town of Bassett, Va., and he was on a train with no sleeper and when he got his first taste of Southern fried chicken and it was great and it was also the first time that he ever ate -- "Hey, White, what's that stuff that looks like oatmeal?"—and Bill White, his onetime announcing partner on Yankee broadcasts, and, like all his partners, never seemed to learn their first names, though he knew the first and last names of a lot of the birthdays he forever is announcing and the owners of his favorite restaurants even though as he admits he often talks about the score or the game, but after 38 years of announcing games and after a 13-year playing career with championship Yankee teams few seem to care about this either, well, White was in the audience and stood up and said "Grits."

In 1999, the minor league Staten Island Yankees named their mascot "Scooter the Holy Cow," after Rizzuto.

He is a 2009 inductee of the New Jersey Hall of Fame.

There is a park named after him in Elizabeth, New Jersey, directly across from Kean University.