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What You Didn't Know about Phil Rizzuto
IDKT 
Tags: Phil Rizzuto, baseball, Yankees, player, announcer, MLB, call, booth, trivia, facts, idkt
I guarantee you didn't know all this about the late, great Phil Rizzuto.
| | Rizzuto was the first ever mystery guest on the classic panel show What's My Line in 1950. |
| | Rizzuto led all Yankees and Cardinals hitters with 8 hits and a .381 average in the 1942 World Series. |
| | Rizzuto played alongside Bobby Brown and announced alongside Bill White; Brown and White would later serve concurrently as presidents of the American and National Leagues, respectively, between 1989 and 1994. |
| | As an announcer, Rizzuto devised the unique scoring notation "WW" for his scorecard; it stands for "Wasn't Watching." |
| | Was the MVP of the 1951 World Series, in spite of the play where pugnacious Giants second baseman Eddie Stanky sparked a rally by kicking the ball out of Rizzuto's glove on a tag play. Rizzuto batted .320 with 8 hits in the series. |
| | Rizzuto's name is mentioned in the 1995 Adam Sandler movie Billy Madison, when Sandler's character is attempting to write "Rizzuto" on a chalkboard in cursive, and is unable to properly write the lower-case z's. |
| | The Seinfeld episode "The Pothole" features a Phil Rizzuto key chain that says "Holy Cow!" whenever you squeeze his head. George promptly loses it when it is buried under asphalt in a pothole. Kramer, upon seeing it (unburied), proclaims it a "talking Nixon." |
| | Rizzuto decided to auction off his Most Valuable Player Award from the 1950 season on September 13, 2006, after he determined he could not figure out which of his children to will the special item to. The MVP award fetched $175,000. Three of Phil's World Series rings went for $84,825, and a Yankee cap with a wad of chewing gum on it went for $8,190. Known throughout the baseball world as one of the most giving former athletes, the vast majority of the proceeds went to Phil's long-time favorite charity, the St. Joseph's School for the Blind located in Jersey City, New Jersey. This is the school that Rizzuto routinely mentioned during WPIX broadcasts of Yankee games over the years, where his friend since 1951, Ed Lucas, attended. |
| | Credits former teammate and Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio with introducing him to his wife of over fifty years, Cora. |
| | Former Pro Wrestler turned author Mick Foley wrote a baseball themed novel entitled "Scooter" in which the main character Scooter Reilly is named after Rizzuto.[citation needed] |
| | In an article in 1976 in Esquire magazine, sportswriter Harry Stein published an "All Time All-Star Argument Starter," consisting of five ethnic baseball teams. Rizzuto was the shortstop on Stein's Italian team. |
| | The minor league team, Staten Island Yankees named their mascot Scooter "the holy" Cow, after Rizzuto. |
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