Phil Rizzuto passed away yesterday at the age of 89. He had a hall of fame career as a shortstop, but since I never got to see him play, it’s his broadcasting for which I’ll always remember him. I’ve been a Yankees fan since kindergarten, and Rizzuto’s was the voice that called those games during my formative years. The Scooter had a contagious enthusiasm not just for the Yankees and baseball, but seemingly for everything in life from cannoli’s to golf. He was always genuinely amused and exhuberant about everything. You couldn’t help but just love a personality like that.

Throughout my childhood years, the broadcast team on 1010 WINS radio and WPIX TV (way before it became the WB for you young’ns) featured Rizzuto with Frank Messer and Bill White and later on, Fran Healy (who exclusively did the radio broadcasts). Yes, back then, those guys did both TV and radio during the same game, although not every game was televised. They used to pull 3 inning shifts, so Scooter might do the first six innings on TV, 3 as color commentator and 3 of play by play, and then jump over to the radio booth to do the final 3 innings for 1010 WINS. During home games he was famous for leaving in the middle of the 7th to beat the traffic over the GW Bridge heading back home to NJ. But I tell ya, I loved hearing Rizzuto do the games so much, if he had just finished his TV innings and was heading over to do radio, I would follow him by grabbing my trusty old Tandy transistor radio, extending the telescoping antenna as far as it would go and tuning into the game on it. My mom would never allow me to listen to the radio and watch tv at the same time, so I had to choose, and I always chose to listen to the radio if that’s where the Scooter was. That was also about the time when earphones first became available so during big games, like playoffs against the Royals, I would sometimes try and cheat by hiding the radio under a sofa pillow and running the earphone to my ear. Mom caught me sometimes, but after a while, I think even she sort of grasped what it meant to me during playoffs and let it slide. But I can often remember being in my bedroom listening to the game, and if Reggie hit a big home run or Nettles made a diving catch, I’d dash out to the living room and try to turn on the tv to catch the replay. TV’s took a long time to warm up back then though, so I wasn’t always successful, and I would get scolded both for running in the house and for repeatedly turning the TV on and off. All that trouble, just so that I could enjoy Rizzuto calling the game. That’s how great he was to me. As I’m sure he is for so many other Yankees fans, he will forever be a fond part of my childhood memories. So long, Scooter.