"Yankee baseball will be broadcast for the 51st consecutive season in 1989. WPIX-TV (Channel 11) will be the New York City television outlet for the 39th straight season, while WABC Radio (770 AM) is leading the Yankee radio network as the flagship station for the ninth straight year. A network covering 12 states also participates in the Yankees' TV and radio coverage.
The Madison Square Garden Network is beginning its first season as the Yankees' cable television outlet in the tri-state area, and Yankee games will also be broadcast in Spanish to Latin America for the 20th straight season. These comprehensive broadcast outlets ensure that Yankee baseball will be one of the most widely available sports events in the country."
-1989 New York Yankees Information Guide
"Yankees baseball will be broadcast for the 51st consecutive year in 1989. WPIX-TV will be the New York City television station for the 39th straight season. WABC TALKRADIO, 77 on your AM dial, is leading the Yankees radio network for the ninth straight year. MSG Network will be the Yankees' cable television carrier."
-1989 New York Yankees Scorebook & Souvenir Program
PHIL RIZZUTO (WPIX)
"The one and only Scooter, the greatest shortstop in Yankees history, is in his 33rd year of giving viewers the inside word on the Bronx Bombers. Phil's outgoing personality and lively banter have spiced up Yankees broadcasts since he started the job after ending his brilliant career on the playing field.
He never rests while at work and that dedication shows during broadcasts. Simply put, the Scooter on the air means fun for the fans."
-The New York Yankees Official 1989 Yearbook
"Rizzuto, the greatest shortstop in Yankee history, is in his 33rd season as a Yankee broadcaster. The 1950 American League MVP moved into the broadcast booth immediately following his playing career (1941-56) in 1957, giving him 49 consecutive seasons affiliated with the Yankees."
-1989 New York Yankees Information Guide
"Phil Rizzuto, the greatest shortstop in Yankee history, is now in his 33rd season as a Yankees broadcaster. The 1950 American League MVP moved to the broadcast booth immediately following his playing career (1941-56) in 1957."
-1989 New York Yankees Scorebook & Souvenir Program
PHILIP FRANCIS RIZZUTO: A YANKEE FOR LIFE
"A lot of water has flowed under a lot of bridges since a skinny, frightened 19-year-old kid from Brooklyn reported to the Basset, Virginia Class-D club, the lowest rung on the Yankee ladder, to start his career in professional baseball. Today, that same individual looks back on an outstanding career as a major league shortstop, followed by an equally scintillating career as a sports announcer.
Unless you have been living in a cave the past half-century, you know, of course, that we are speaking of Philip Francis Rizzuto, better known in sporting circles as 'The Scooter.' Ironically, the nickname is not only descriptive of his playing field movement but of all other phases of his life. From an airplane to the baggage area to a cab, or from the broadcast booth to his car and home.
There has been an argument raging for years about his exclusion from the Hall of Fame, which speaks volumes for the credentials he presents. He was voted the all-time Yankee shortstop in a landslide, which takes care of where Mr. Rizzuto rates among his peers.
The kid from Brooklyn traveled a long way from the day he reported to Ebbets Field for a tryout and was told by Casey Stengel, then Dodger manager, 'Get lost kid, get a shoeshine box, you're too small to be a ballplayer.' Casey wasn't wrong often, but this time he missed by a mile.
Ironically, Rizzuto wound up his playing career under Stengel and earned his plaudits as a key ingredient of several of Casey's championship teams. 'He was the best shortstop I ever had,' said Stengel.
'The only mid-century players who could have starred in my era,' said Ty Cobb, who some rate as the greatest ever, 'are Phil Rizzuto and Stan Musial.' Too bad Ty was never on the Veterans Committee for the Hall of Fame.
Rizzuto was voted Minor League Player of the Year in 1940, then 10 years later was voted Major League Player of the Year. That was the year, of course, when Phil hit .324, the highest batting average ever compiled by a Yankee shortstop. He won the MVP and the Hickok Belt, which denotes the Professional Athlete of the Year. A year later he won the Babe Ruth Award as the MVP of the World Series.
'I can't pick out any one event or day as the highlight of my career,' says Phil. 'Perhaps the biggest thrill came when they retired my number 10 and put a plaque in Monument Park. Not even getting into the Hall of Fame could top that. It was also a thrill to get the Pride of the Yankees Award.'
There is no disputing the biggest disappointment of his career- in fact, it has to be the nadir of his career. That would have been Old Timers Day in 1956 when he was given his release to clear roster space for Enos Slaughter.
'George Weiss and Casey called me in,' Phil recalls. 'They told me they thought the club needed another good left-handed bat for the stretch run. They I asked who I thought was expendable. I mentioned several names which were turned down and then it hit me, they were trying to tell me it was me. It was an awful feeling.'
Rizzuto disappeared for several days after that but never put the rap on the Yankees or the officials. When it came time to slice up the World Series pie, the Yankee players cut a full slice for their little leader. A year later, he surfaced as Mel Allen's broadcast partner, and Phil's second successful career was underway.
Fans of Rizzuto, the shortstop, have many memories of his acrobatics on the field. His flying leaps to avoid sliding runners on double plays, his own slides into a base to swipe a hassock, and his flashing tags to erase a would-be base stealer. And the most vivid memory of all, the squeeze bunt which sent home Joe DiMaggio with the winning run in a game that actually meant the pennant.
Rizzuto played on nine Yankee pennant winners and eight World Champions during his brilliant career, plus he was on five All-Star teams. In Yankee annals, he is among the giants: ninth all-time in games; 10th in at-bats; 13th in runs; 10th in hits; 15th in doubles; 16th in triples and ninth in stolen bases.
How did it happen that Phil moved from the field to the broadcast booth? Was it an accident? Did it come out of the blue? Had he ever thought about turning to the airwaves?
'Are you kidding?' Phil says. 'Holy cow, I was thinking about it for the last five years as a player. When Casey took me out of a game I would go up to the booth and Mel would let me do a half-inning. At home, I would turn off the sound on TV and broadcast the game myself.'
Rizzuto's career as a broadcaster has been as successful as his playing days. He is moving into his 33rd year in that capacity and 53rd as part of the Yankee organization.
There's only one Rizzuto, but he's a winner!"
-Jim Ogle, 1989 New York Yankees Scorebook & Souvenir Program
BOBBY MURCER (MSG)
"Few people know the Yankees organization better than Bobby Murcer, who is broadcasting on MSG Network, the club's cable affiliate.
After finishing his playing career in 1983, Murcer started working in the broadcast booth and has found much success. Yankee fans are excited to see this familiar face talking Yankee baseball."
-The New York Yankees Official 1989 Yearbook
"Always a Yankee favorite, Bobby Murcer joins MSG Network in its first year covering the Yankees. Bobby has worked as a Yankee hitting instructor. He formerly worked in the booth in 1983, '86 and '88."
-1989 New York Yankees Scorebook & Souvenir Program
GEORGE GRANDE (WPIX)
"In his first year as a Yankee broadcaster, George Grande brings to New York the kind of baseball knowledge Yankee fans will come to respect.
Grande was a charter broadcaster on ESPN in 1979 and went on to host the weekly 'Inside Baseball' highlights program. He also served as the baseball reporter for the nightly SportsCenter. George was twice named Connecticut's Sportscaster of the Year."
-The New York Yankees Official 1989 Yearbook
"George Grande, in his first year as a Yankees broadcaster, was a charter broadcaster of ESPN in 1979 and went on to host the weekly 'Inside Baseball' highlights program. Grande was twice named Connecticut's Sportscaster of the Year."
-1989 New York Yankees Scorebook & Souvenir Program
GREG GUMBEL (MSG)
"The multi-dimensional Greg Gumbel joins the MSG Network telecasts of Yankees games as host of the pre- and postgame shows. Gumbel also hosts three weekly programs for the network, and calls play-by-play for selected New York Knicks telecasts."
-The New York Yankees Official 1989 Yearbook
"Greg Gumbel joins the MSG Network telecast of Yankees games as host of the pre- and postgame shows for the network and calls play-by-play for selected New York Knicks telecasts."
-1989 New York Yankees Scorebook & Souvenir Program
TOM SEAVER (WPIX)
"One of New York's greatest sports heroes, Tom Seaver returns to the Big Apple as a Yankee broadcaster for WPIX. He has broadcast four World Series and five League Championship Series for network television.
Seaver collected 311 career wins and won the Cy Young Award three times in his 20-year career."
-The New York Yankees Official 1989 Yearbook
"Tom Seaver, one of the greatest pitchers in major league history, starts his first season as a Yankees broadcaster. Seaver won the Cy Young Award three times in his 20-year career and broadcast four World Series and five League Championship Series for network television."
-1989 New York Yankees Scorebook & Souvenir Program
JOHN STERLING (WABC)
"A Yankee broadcaster in the '70s, John Sterling returns to the Yankees broadcast booth after spending eight seasons with the Atlanta Hawks. Formerly a play-by-play announcer for the New York Nets and Baltimore Bullets, John was also an Atlanta Braves broadcaster for five years.
His knowledge and experience will endear him to all Yankee fans."
-The New York Yankees Official 1989 Yearbook
"Sterling has broadcast Atlanta Braves and Atlanta Hawks games on superstation WTBS. He has also broadcast New Jersey Nets and New York Islanders games locally."
-1989 New York Yankees Information Guide
"A Yankee broadcaster in the '70s, John Sterling returns to the Yankees broadcast booth after spending eight seasons with the Atlanta Hawks. Formerly a play-by-play announcer for the New York Nets and Baltimore Bullets, John was also an Atlanta Braves broadcaster for five years."
-1989 New York Yankees Scorebook & Souvenir Program
TOMMY HUTTON (MSG)
"This is Tommy Hutton's third season as a Yankee broadcaster. After spending 17 years in pro ball, the former infielder turned to broadcasting in 1981 as a regular on the Montreal Expos broadcasts.
Tommy now brings his upbeat manner and knowledge of the game to the attention of Yankee fans. He works alongside Bobby Murcer in the MSG Network booth."
-The New York Yankees Official 1989 Yearbook
"Tommy Hutton returns for his third year as a Yankee broadcaster, his first with MSG Network. He previously spent five years as a broadcaster for the Montreal Expos. Before his broadcast career, Tommy spent 12 seasons in the major leagues."
-1989 New York Yankees Scorebook & Souvenir Program
JAY JOHNSTONE (WABC)
"There are few more personable individuals in the game of baseball than Jay Johnstone. He has been involved in baseball for 26 years and retired in 1985 after playing for eight major league teams.
Since his retirement, Jay has kept busy as the color analyst for college baseball on ESPN. His wit and enthusiasm for the game will make him popular among Yankee fans in his first year as a Yankees broadcaster."
-The New York Yankees Official 1989 Yearbook
"Johnstone, who played with the Yankees in 1978-79 during his 20 years in the major leagues, has become a nationally known broadcaster and author following the conclusion of his playing career."
-1989 New York Yankees Information Guide
"The always colorful Jay Johnstone enters the Yankee broadcast booth for the first time. A 20-year major league veteran, Jay played for the Yankees, Dodgers, Cubs, Padres, Phillies, A's, White Sox and Angels. After his playing career he worked as a college baseball analyst for ESPN."
-1989 New York Yankees Scorebook & Souvenir Program
BILL WHITE, NATIONAL LEAGUE PRESIDENT
"Each summer for more years than he likes to count, Bill White would meet for dinner with an old friend from Hiram College. They would talk about those days on the placid Ohio campus and they would talk about the days since.
'He's a surgeon now and he would describe his work and talk about the lives he has saved,' remembers White. 'I would talk about the exciting games I played, the World Series and All-Star Games I enjoyed and the tremendous Yankee baseball I described through the years.'
There would be much joy at the reunion and a little sadness. The doctor would moan about his inability to hit the curve ball and march on into baseball as White did. The former Yankee broadcaster and new president of the National League would muse about what his own life might have been like if he had continued his educational dream and went through medical school.
The musings will certainly take on a different tone this summer as White begins his term as the 13th National League president and first to represent his race.
Baseball took a historic step on February 3, 1989 when it named William De Kova White as its new NL president to succeed A. Bartlett Giamatti.
What was truly significant about the acceptance of White as the NL boss was not the color of his skin but the quality of his work. White became the first National League president to move into the position from the playing ranks. The American League had made that historic move twice before with Hall of Famer Joe Cronin and present chief Bobby Brown, the former Yankee third baseman and retired physician.
After 18 years in the Yankees' broadcast booth- a more significant move in 1971 than his present promotion in 1989- followers of the former first baseman's career could hardly be surprised.
The smooth-fielding, sweet-stroking left-handed hitter with the Giants, Cardinals and Phillies was a leader on every team he played for, was a figure of dignity and style around the Yankees and has as many baseball friends without really trying as any man in the game.
'When I played with him,' says Hall of Famer Bob Gibson, 'he was a leader on our club. The 1964 Cardinals (Gibson, Curt Flood, Ken Boyer, Dick Groat, Lou Brock, Roger Craig, Curt Simmons, Ray Sadecki) was a veteran club. That was the year we passed the Phillies on the final day of the season. We probably didn't have the best talent but we played hard together.'
That Cardinal team was as famous for its clubhouse needling as its performance on the field. One of the lead characters, if not a lead performer, was Bob Uecker. Many of the lines now heard from him on the Tonight Show were tried out on his St. Louis teammates.
'Bill ran a little trading post in that clubhouse,' Gibson added. 'We used to get small gifts for appearing on radio and television in those days, a portable radio, a shaver, a small traveling bag, things like that. We gave everything to Bill for his trading post. Then we visited his locker when we needed an item and made a deal. I think that business experience will help him in his new job.'
Born in Florida and raised in Ohio, White's family always stressed education. Both his parents were school teachers and White clearly made his future intentions known early. He was going to medical school.
'I got through Hiram College on athletic scholarships and then I needed money for medical school. I had been accepted at Ohio State. I decided to postpone school and play one summer after the Giants signed me for a $5,000 bouns,' White says.
He reported to Danville in the Carolina League and hit .298. He got a pay raise from the Giants and decided to try one more season of professional baseball before starting medical school. He batted .319 at Sioux City in the Western League. His fate was fixed.
'I guess I surprised myself and everybody else by how well I did. The Giants were pressing me for a decision about my future. They had big plans for me and they didn't want me leaving them as I was moving up. I decided to cast my lot with baseball,' he says.
The Giants, Cardinals, Phillies and all of baseball would benefit from that decision. White would add his own style and grace to the game. He was not only a fine performer almost from the start, he was a wonderful representative of the game.
He joined the New York Giants in 1956 and was slightly in awe of his more famous teammates, especially Willie Mays, then reaching his peak as one of the game's greatest performers.
'Willie made it all look easy. I had to work for everything I got in baseball,' he says.
He hit .256 as a New York rookie, spent most of the next two years in the service and was traded to the Cardinals in the spring of 1959. He reported to them in St. Petersburg, Florida. He had previously trained with the Giants in Arizona.
'This was 1959, a dozen years after Jackie Robinson, and black players still lived separately from the whites. I wasn't about to sit still for that,' he says.
Led by White, Gibson, Flood and an outspoken militant named George Crowe, the minority players fought for and won housing with the rest of the ball club. It was a major step forward. When the Yankees followed suit in that town, it was a lot easier for the Mets when they landed in St. Petersburg in 1962.
White's peak year with the Cardinals probably was the pennant-winning season of 1964. He batted .305, had 102 RBI (White had four seasons over 100 RBI in 13 years), slugged 21 homers and led the league in fielding.
He was traded to the Phillies in 1966, tore his Achilles tendon there in 1968 and ended his career back in St. Louis in 1969. He batted .286 for those 13 seasons, not Hall of Fame numbers, but quality play for good teams.
As his career began winding down, White began revving up as a broadcaster. He did some broadcasting in Philadelphia and was taken on by KMOX in St. Louis in the off-season after the trade.
As the civil rights movement gained strength in the late 1960s, White's name came up often as a candidate for the first black manager. No less a personage than Jackie Robinson singled White out as the most qualified man for that historic breakthrough.
'I never really wanted to manage,' he says. 'I didn't want my job to depend on 25 other guys.'
He became more proficient in broadcasting. In 1971, former Yankee boss Michael Burke brought White to New York as a partner on radio with Phil Rizzuto. It was quite a gamble.
White, intelligent, quick-witted, fast with a quip and highly knowledgeable about the game, was an immediate hit. When George Steinbrenner took over the team in January of 1973 he quickly assured White he was a big part of the new New York Yankees.
'We went back a long way,' says Steinbrenner. 'I remember seeing him as a basketball player for Hiram College when I was coaching an Air Force team. I followed his career as a player and I was proud to have him with the Yankees.'
Steinbrenner never actually offered the managerial job on the team but he did discuss the managerial prospects on several occasions through the years.
'He could have been a great manager if he had wanted to go that way,' Steinbrenner says. 'He's a true leader. He could do anything in business. He could have run my shipping company. He's that good. He'll be as good as anyone the National League ever had in that position.'
For 18 years White and Rizzuto teamed together to bring fans the game on radio and television. There was much affection displayed and a lot of old-fashioned ballplayer humor.
When asked why he would leave the security of baseball broadcasting for the pressures of the National League executive suite, White explained, 'If you ever worked 18 years with Rizzuto you know my motivation. I sat next to that guy all those years and he still doesn't know my first name.'
White was kidding about that as everyone knew. In ball player parlance, no one ever has a first name. That was Rizzuto's way of calling White a teammate.
When the new president was installed at a lavish press conference, the reporters pressed the issue of race. They zeroed in on White's feeling about being the first black to hold the position.
'I don't know how I feel,' he laughed. 'I've been black all my life.'
Gibson is tired of that part of the story.
'The guy got the job because he was the best man the owners could find,' says the former fireballer. 'That should be the last time we have to listen to race questions.'
It is clear White got his new position because he is a solid, intelligent, experienced, dignified, popular baseball man. Color has as much bearing on his qualifications as the Yankees manager being Green or the AL's president being Brown.
The 55-year-old divorced father of five also recognized that there are different stages in a man's life. 'I wanted to get on with my life,' he explains. 'After 18 years of saying 'It's a groundball to second,' it was time for something a bit more definite.'
White had come a long way from those days when he was simply an ex-jock learning his new trade. He is clearly a professional broadcaster with all the skills and authority of some of his great predecessors- Mel Allen, Russ Hodges, Red Barber, Joe Garagiola, Curt Gowdy and Scooter.
'I hope to bring the job my experience as a player and a love of the game,' he says. 'I also hope to bring more harmony between the players and the owners.'
I have known Bill White for more than 30 years. He is an exceptional man. This may not be his final career move.
After all, a man named Ronald Reagan started his professional career as a baseball broadcaster."
-Maury Allen, The New York Yankees Official 1989 Yearbook
