Remembering Rocky Colavito

Rocky Colavito died last week at the age of 91. A six-time all-star, Colavito was one of the top sluggers of the late 1950s and early-to-mid 1960s.

In the years 1958 through 1962, Colavito averaged 40 home runs and 113 runs-batted-in. In the next four years, he averaged 28 homers and 93 RBIs.

For his career, Colavito’s WAR (wins above replacement) is 44.9. That ranks 429th on the all-time list (which includes all major league players of any position). That’s a higher WAR than some Hall-of-Famers, including Harold Baines, Gil Hodges, Red Schoendienst, and Lloyd Waner.

This doesn’t mean Colavito should be enshrined at Cooperstown. He shouldn’t be. But it does show how good a player he was.

And I haven’t even mentioned Colavito’s arm. It’s considered the best among American League outfielders of his era. In fact, the story is that the Cleveland Indians were ready to sign him after watching him throw, without waiting to see him bat.

Colavito displayed that arm in his two major league pitching appearances, ten years apart. He did not give up a run in 5.2 innings of work. He gave up only one hit, while striking out two.

As good as he was, Colavito is mostly remembered today for a series of events, only one of which has anything directly to do with his batting or throwing. The first occurred in May 1957. With Herb Score, who came up through the minor leagues with Rocky and was his best friend, on the mound for Cleveland against the Yankees. Gil McDougald smashed a liner up the middle. It hit Score flush in the eye. The young pitching sensation went down with blood pouring from his face.

Legend has it that Colavito, playing in right field, dashed to his friend’s aid so quickly that he was the first to arrive at the mound.

Score and Colavito remained close friends until the former’s death in 2008.

Colavito is also remembered for hitting four home runs in a game — and in consecutive at-bats. It happened on June 10, 1959 in Baltimore. Memorial Stadium was not an easy park in which to homer. At the time, apparently, no team had ever hit more than three home runs in a game there (the team had moved to Baltimore in 1954). Also at time, only two players had ever hit four consecutive homers in a game.

One was Lou Gehrig. Upon being informed of this, Colavito, a Bronx native, said:

Gehrig? No kidding. He was my favorite player when I was a little kid. My brother, Vito, was a first baseman and he loved Gehrig; so naturally I did, too.

Colavito is even better remembered for the trade that sent him to Detroit in 1960. The Indians received Harvey Kuenn in exchange. Colavito had induced a pop-out from Kuenn during his pitching appearance in 1958.

Colavito was the American League’s reigning home run king. Kuenn was the League’s batting champion (best batting average). These facts gave the deal surface plausibility, at least in the mind of Frank “Trader” Lane, Cleveland’s GM.

But even in an era when batting average was vastly overrated and home runs were somewhat undervalued, the trade was widely perceived as one-sided in favor of Detroit.

It turned out to be worse than that. Colavito made five of the next seven all-star teams. Kuenn continued to hit for a good average, mostly for teams other than the Indians, but managed only 25 more home runs and averaged only 50 RBIs during the rest of his career as a starting player.

It wasn’t just the one-sidedness of the deal that enraged Indians fans. Colavito was idolized by the fan base thanks to his good looks and engaging personality. As sportswriter Terry Pluto put it:

Colavito was everything a ballplayer should be: dark, handsome eyes, and a raw-boned build — and he hit home runs at a remarkable rate.

According to the SABR biography of Colavito:

Reaction to the trade ranged from “My teeth nearly fell out” to “I’ll never go to the ballpark again”. Eighth grader Carol Kickel may have captured the feeling of Tribe fans better than anyone when she said “I just want to tell you this: I belong to one of the Rocky Colavito fan clubs. It’s all over. We’re going to start a new one, the ‘Lane Haters’”

I know the feeling, having reacted the same way as a 10-year-old when the Washington Senators traded my hero, slugging star Roy Sievers, to the White Sox during the same off-season. The difference is that the Sievers trade worked out well. The Colavito trade was a disaster.

That trade is so infamous in Cleveland that some Indians fans attribute the team’s failure to win a World Series since the trade (and to make the Series only twice) to the “curse of Rocky Colavito.” Terry Pluto wrote a fun book by that name.

If there is a curse, it came with a double whammy. In the winter of 1965, the Indians reacquired Colavito from Kansas City as part of a three-way deal involving the White Sox, as well. The Indians gave up two of their very best young players, Tommie Agee and Tommy John.

Colavito, now 32, gave the Indians two good years. In fact, he led the American League in RBIs in 1965. But Agee became rookie-of-the -year and an all-star for the White Sox, and was a key player for the 1969 world champion New York Mets. He also won two-Gold Gloves for his center-field play.

As for John, all but two of his 288 career victories came after the Indians traded him.

The fourth incident for which Colavito is often remembered occurred at Yankee Stadium in May 1961. At the end of the eighth inning, as Colavito was returning to the Indians dugout, he noticed that his 60-year-old father was tussling with a Yankee fan. Colavito rushed into the stands to help his father who, it turned out, had intervened because the drunken fan had been bothering Rocky’s wife.

Colavito was ejected from the game, but received no further punishment. American League president Joe Cronin, the Hall-of-Fame shortstop explained:

It wasn’t the right thing for the boy to go up into the stands, but I guess it was natural for him to want to help his father.

Indeed. Colavito had a temper, though. During his playing career, he was ejected as a player 10 times (not counting the incident at Yankee Stadium). He was ejected four more times during his six years as a coach (mostly with the Indians).

By comparison, Roger Maris, who played alongside Colavito as a rookie in 1957 (he was in center-field when Score was hit by that liner) and who ended his career in 1968, the same year as Rocky, was ejected only twice. Mickey Mantle was ejected eight times during a much longer career. Al Kaline, Colavito’s teammate in Detroit, was ejected just once. His career was also much longer than Rocky’s.

But Norm Cash, a hard-charging competitor who played for the Tigers with Kaline and Colavito, was ejected 15 times.

Colavito also butted heads over his salary both in Cleveland and Detroit. In both cases, the clash may have contributed to his being traded. But Colavito was just sticking up for himself. Given the stinginess of owners in that era and the emphasis on batting average, neither club fully appreciated what Rocky brought to the game.

Colavito never played in a World Series. He came fairly close with the Tigers in 1961. That team won 101 games and entered September neck-and-neck with the mighty New York Yankees.

Unfortunately, the Yankees swept a three-game series beginning on September 1 and never looked back. Rocky more than held his own in that series, though. He went 3-10 with a home run and three RBIs.

This was Colavito’s finest season. He belted 45 home runs and knocked in 140 runs. In addition, he walked a career high 113 times. Weirdly, this was only good enough for eighth place in the AL MVP voting. Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle finished 1-2 in that home run happy season, deservedly, but Colavito had a very strong claim for top 5. Again, he was undervalued — this time by the writers.

Colavito also got close to a World Series with Cleveland in 1959, when the Indians came up five games short of the Chicago White Sox. The Indians played Chicago only once that September, a 4-2 loss on September 22. Colavito went 0-3 in that game, but did contribute a sacrifice fly. He nearly had another, but Al Smith threw out Minnie Minoso at home when he tried to score on his not-too-deep fly ball.

Despite the Indians’ futility and the alleged curse, Colavito was revered in Cleveland. To some extent still is. In 2013, when he turned 80, Rocky was honored at a ceremony there. A statue of him stands in the city’s Little Italy neighborhood.

The feeling was mutual. “I always felt this is my town,” he said. “I love Cleveland. It’s my favorite town in the world.”

RIP.