No More Holy Cow
When the news came yesterday that Phil Rizzuto had died, it evoked the sort of feeling on gets when a family member passes. The Scooter, #10 for the Yankees, great shortstop of the 40's and 50's and thereafter 40 years as a Yankee Radio & TV broadcaster, was like a daffy uncle, a beloved but kooky family member. The sort of person who always brought a smile to others, and always had one for everyone else.
The Scooter was a presence in the lives of Yankee fans for seven decades. After a stellar playing career (interrupted by wartime service in the Navy) the Scooter went up to the broadcast booth. He was on teams with baseball greats such as DiMaggio, Berra, Mantle and many others. He won an AL MVP award as well as a World Series MVP.
His unabashed pro-Yanks play by play style, along with birthday and anniversary wishes and thanks to Italian bakeries and restaurants for sending canolis and lasagna to the booth became fodder for countless arguments and discussion over a 40 year broadcast career. Some complained that he was too pro-Yankee to evenly call the action -- but this was what made Scooter such a delight. He loved the team, loved being a member of the team and a part of the team. And he was always a hoot. Unabashed and open, he'd leave the games in the 7th or 8th inning to beat the traffic over the George Washington Bridge back to his home in New Jersey. Adding to the humor was a decision by the Director to often get a shot of the bridge after Scooter left; a sort of on-air nod goodbye to the good-natured Rizzuto.
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Scooter was immortalized in ways that differed from many other players or broadcasters. He did a commercial for The Money Store, well over twenty years ago, which any number of New Yorkers can still quote from memory, doing their version of Rizzuto.
Seinfeld Episode 150 "The PotHole" uses The Scooter's voice, with his signature expression, "Holy Cow" on a key ring. Celebrating The Scooter's induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Seinfeld's George Costanza explains that if you squeeze Scooter's head on the key ring, you'll hear his voice delivering the famous line.
It was The Scooter doing that symbolic back seat of the car play-by-play in Meatloaf's Paradise By The Dashboard Light [1] (lyrics and transcript [2]) back in 1978.