Customer Reviews

O Holy Cow!: The Selected Verse of Phil Rizzuto

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For me, nothing better epitomizes my age of baseball innocence than falling in love with the WPIX broadcasts of Phil Rizzuto, Frank Messer and Bill White during the late 1970s. This offbeat collection of the Scooter's unintentional poetry in his broadcasts is a graphic illustration of why Rizzuto was a true joy in the broadcast booth even if he wasn't a professional in the Mel Allen-Red Barber mold. I loved the format so much that I've actually reviewed the hundreds of old Yankee radio and telecast tapes in my collection searching for supplements to the collected verse of the Scooter and have found enough that could fill a sequel volume. Thanks to Seely and Pyer for this wonderful collection that no Yankee fan should be without.

In the late 1970s, when the Mets really hit the skids and the Yankees got good again, it became necessary, if you were a kid in the Tri- State
area, to at least watch the Yankees, perhaps even to grudgingly root for them.  Forced into this spiritually untenable position, I chose to only
root for the scrubs, which made Cliff Johnson my favorite player.  I'll never forget the game where he tagged a pitch and Phil Rizzuto started
screaming that : "That one's outta here", bringing joy to the heart of every Heatchliff fan, only to have his towering popup caught by the
second baseman.  

"The Scooter" was easy to laugh at, with his myriad phobias, his propensity for saying unintentionally offensive things about minorities, his
tendency to leave the ballpark early when the Yankees were home, etc. But then there began appearing in The Village Voice a most
remarkable feature : verbatim text from Scooter's broadcasts rendered as poetry. We were suddenly confronted with the frightening prospect
that Scooter was not only making sense, but serving up literature, even profundity. Consider the wisdom, about baseball and about life [....]

As it turns out, this kind of exercise even has a name, it's called "found poetry." The Rizzuto poems are as good as any I've seen[...].

At any rate, this book is a hoot and once you read it you'll never again think of Rizzuto as just a good glove man, nor listen to a baseball
broadcast without noticing the frequently poetic nature of the announcer's line of patter.

GRADE : A

Even though it's a short book, a little bit goes a long way with this kind of thing. Use in moderation.

Plus, I miss Bill White's good-natured chuckling.

Still, these "poems" are pretty good at bringing back long-gone hot summer nights.

I grew up in Binghamton, New York listening to the Scooter do Yankee games on WPIX out of New York. If you've heard him do more than two or three games, you will LITERALLY laugh out loud while reading this book, and you will sometimes believe that the guy is just remarkably profound. Even if he isn't. This book has actual Rizzuto dialogue and play-by-play stuff merely laid out on the page as poetry, and it is just some of the coolest stuff I've ever seen. And no, I don't know the authors or work for the publisher. The "poem" about Thurman Munson's death is incredible. Get the book

Anyone who has ever heard the wisdon of Phil Rizzuto being broadcast from a Yankee game must buy this book. It is the epitome of the Scooter. It will make you laugh so hard it brings tears to your eyes while the "Poem" about Thurman Munson will bring tears to your eyes for a whole other reason.

Some people are good at laying down sacrifice bunts, and some people are good at poetry. But nowadays so few people excel at both. Phil Rizzuto is that rare double-threat, and that's why this book is essential for anyone who likes bunts or poems.

My only complaint is that the editors have left out my all-time favorite Rizzuto moment, which was the time circa 1980 when Rizzuto and Frank Messer spent part of a day game discussing whether or not gorillas can swim. The answer proved elusive, but I have since learned that they can.

Scooter never disappoints. We should all be so gifted. Some people may not see the poetry, but just ask White or Seaver - they know

This literary gem is destined to be handed down from parent to child for generations to come.

Long before there was politics, or correctness, there was Phil Rizzuto. Rizzuto ably scoops up the essense of morality and ethics and fires to first with more deftness than Shakespeare, or that guy from Ireland (I can't remember his name--not Joyce, though; it was somebody else.) The poem we always relate and remember around the old campfire--when we go camping, and we have a fire, is the story Scooter tells in the honored oral tradition of Homer: of live-trapping squirrels in his attic and then letting them loose somewhere over by Yogi's house.

No doubt Rizzuto will forever be linked to the other great American Poets: Frost, Angelou, and Walden.

Phil Rizzuto was for thirteen years one of the greatest ballplayers who ever played the game. He was a legendary shortstop who once fielded two- hundred and thirty- eight chances without an error. He was a great clutch player especially in the World Series. During his years with the Yankees they won several World Series. He was also the greatest bunter the game had seen since Ty Cobb.
He after his playing years became a broadcaster for the Yankee games and did this for over forty years. There he built up a great following who loved his particular mix of homey platitude, rooting for the Yankees, general banter and cliche, good- hearted and good- willed chatter. I never went for the broadcaster Scooter perhaps because it was already past the time when Baseball meant so much to me. The Scooter on the radio always sounded flat, boring , inane and annoying. And this when I nonetheless understood that he is a good decent guy who was once a very great ballplayer.
This little volume consists in 'found poems'. The editors put together little pieces of Rizzuto's talk and restructured them as poetry. It works sometimes as in his long prayer for the health of Thurman Munson. It also is funny at times as in the poem dedicated to his leaving the game early to go home. He often talked about the need to get across the George Washington Bridge and back home. It also will bring back a lot of memories for those who loved to listen to him.
This is not material for poetry lovers in general, but for Scooter fans and real baseball fans only.

If you grew up watching those awful awful Yankees teams of the 80s and early 90s, you also know that listening to Scooter, White, and Bobby Murcer was all that made the WPIX broadcasts bearable. Hearing Scooter riff on whatever news story was bothering him that day, or who's birthday it was, or trying to wish Pagliarulo's grounders out of the infield, was awesome.

This book openly acknowledges the poetic genius of Phil Rizzuto's impromptu utterances in the booth. Call me sentimental--in this case I don't care. I loved him, and I love the book.