Phil Rizzuto

Every summer my parents would regain their sanity by sending my sister and I to my grandparents' home on Long Island. For Buffy and I, their Tudor-style home was paradise: seven channels on a 20" TV set! A black and white TV in the finished basement that we could watch whenever we wanted!

The old WPIX Channel 11 Logo

But the best thing was Yankee games on TV just about every night.

This was long before cable, back when New York City was dirty and verging on bankruptcy. The World Trade Center had just been completed and those giant buildings interfered with the transmission of the television signal from WPIX (channel 11). The result was ghost images of the twin towers appeared on the lower left of the TV screen. It was annoying but somewhat cool: you could absolutely make out the shapes of the two buildings. WPIX eventually incorporated the ghostly images as part of their logo, making the 11 into the two towers.

Anyway, the Yankees play-by-play team at the time was Phil Rizzuto, Frank Messer and Bill White (later the National League President). Fran Healy was (rightly so) limited to radio play-by-play only.

Grandpa Doc hated Phil Rizzuto. When Rizzuto was doing the TV play-by-play, Grandpa listened to the game on the radio (while watching the TV). When Rizzuto was on the radio, Grandpa went back to the TV audio. I didn't get it. Rizzuto was hilarious (to my 10-year-old ears). He called Bill White and Healy "huckleberries" and was terrified of thunderstorms. Any sign of lightening and Rizzuto would leave the broadcast booth. He also tended to forget about the game and talk about what his wife Cora made him for supper. I thought he was great. Grandpa said he was no Red Barber. Having no clue who Red Barber was, I couldn't disagree (not that you ever did with Grandpa Doc anyway).

Phil Rizzuto lulled me to sleep just about every spring and summer night from 1975 until his retirement in 1996. He gained more fame by doing the voice-over segment of Meatloaf's song Paradise by the Dashboard Light. During his voice over he yells in his trademark incredulous voice "Holy cow I think he's gonna make it!"

It was the catchphrase of my youth. It still makes me smile.

I Remember What I See

From what I can tell, my earliest memory is from when I was about 2 years old. I remember my feet in the sand at the edge of the shore and a feeling of vertigo as the waves came in over my feet and then receded. (Vertigo and recede are words a 45-year-old puts to it. I remember dizziness and panic and thought for sure I was going to be sucked out to sea.)

I also very clearly recall my fingers squeezing my father's index finger for dear life. I remember the blond hair on his legs, his bony ankles and his enormous white feet that were also disappearing into the sand.

That's it: panic when I looked at my own feet, safety when I looked at my Dad's hand.

That was probably the high point in our relationship, but then again I guess things are always complex between fathers and sons.