Phil Rizzuto - Personal Life

Personal Life

Rizzuto married Cora Anne Ellenborn on June 23, 1943; the two first met the previous year when Rizzuto substituted for Joe DiMaggio as a speaker at a Newark communion breakfast. “I fell in love so hard I didn’t go home,” Rizzuto recalled. He rented a nearby hotel room for a month to be near her.

Despite Rizzuto's desire to be near Cora, wives did not come along on Yankee road trips. Years later, on hearing that former teammate Joe DiMaggio was to marry Marilyn Monroe, Yogi Berra quipped, "I don't know if it's good for baseball, but it sure beats the hell out of rooming with Phil Rizzuto."

The Rizzutos moved to Hillside, New Jersey, in 1950, to a home on Windsor Way. With later financial successes, they moved to a magnificent Tudor home on Westminster Avenue, where they lived for many years.

During his playing days, Rizzuto (along with several other big leaguers) would work in the off season at the American Shops off U.S. Route 22 near Bayonne, New Jersey. At a charity event in 1951, Rizzuto met a young blind boy named Ed Lucas, who had lost his sight when he was struck by a baseball between the eyes on the same day as Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World." Rizzuto took an interest in the boy and his school, St. Joseph's School for the Blind. Until his death, Rizzuto raised millions for St. Joseph's by donating profits from his commercials and books, and also by hosting the Annual Phil Rizzuto Celebrity Golf Classic and "Scooter" Awards. Rizzuto and Lucas remained friendly, and it was through the Yankee broadcaster's influence that Lucas's 2006 wedding was the only one ever conducted at Yankee Stadium. Lucas was one of Rizzuto's last visitors at his nursing home, days before his death. Phil's wife, Cora Rizzuto, died in Neptune, New Jersey, in 2010 (February 17, 1920 – October 7, 2010).