Childhood in The Bronx

Colavito grew up in The Bronx as a devoted fan of the New York Yankees, particularly Joe DiMaggio. By age nine he was playing semipro baseball, and he dropped out of school at age 16 to pursue a baseball career. Major League rules called for a player to wait until his school class graduated before signing, and only a special appeal allowed him to go pro after a one-year wait. The Yankees expressed little interest in him, and the Philadelphia Athletics had to bow out due to financial problems; the Cleveland Indians finally signed him in 1950, with two-thirds of his signing bonus deferred until he progressed in their system. He spent most of the next six years working his way up. With the Indianapolis Indians in 1954, Colavito would hit 38 home runs and accumulate 116 RBIs.

A sensation in Cleveland

After breaking in with the Indians briefly in 1955, he started 1956 in the Pacific Coast League, once showing off his throwing arm by hurling a ball over the center-field wall from home plate, with his longest mark at 436 feet (133 m). He returned to the Indians in July, and after batting .276 with 21 home runs he earned one vote in the AL Rookie of the Year voting. After slipping to a .252 average in 1957, in 1958 he batted .303 with 41 home runs (one behind Mickey Mantle's league lead) and 113 runs batted in, and finished third in the MVP balloting. He also led the AL in slugging with a .620 average, the highest by a right-handed Indians hitter until Albert Belle in 1994.

One year later Colavito became the first Indian to have two 40-HR seasons; with 42, he tied Harmon Killebrew for the AL lead and was one short of Al Rosen's club record. He finished fourth in the MVP vote, and also made the All-Star team for the first time; he was eventually chosen in six years, including both All-Star Games in 1959, 1961 and 1962, when two were played annually. On June 10, 1959 he smashed four homers in consecutive at bats in a single game at the Baltimore Orioles' cavernous Memorial Stadium. He later hit four home runs on the same day while playing for Detroit, but they were distributed between the two games of a double header. The Indians finished five games behind the Chicago White Sox in the 1959 pennant race, the closest he would come to a title until 1967. Colavito would hit 30-plus homers seven times, establishing himself as a major power hitter and as an excellent fielder with a strong arm despite being flat-footed.

Sent to Tigers in blockbuster deal

Colavito was easily the Cleveland fans' favorite, with his handsome appearance and approachability, always accommodating the hundreds of autograph seekers after each game even if it took a few hours. But just days before the Opening Day of the 1960 season, Indians general manager Frank Lane traded him to the Detroit Tigers for Harvey Kuenn, who had won the 1959 batting title. The trade proved to be a good one for the Tigers but a terrible, unpopular one for the Indians, whose fans lost their favorite player and best hitter. Kuenn had a minor injury early in the season and was traded away by the end of the year. Lane, whose reputation as a wheeler-dealer earned him the moniker Frank "Trader" Lane in the sports press, further irritated fans by saying, "What's all the fuss about? All I did was trade hamburger for steak." Tigers GM Bill DeWitt jokingly responded that he liked hamburger. In 1961 with the Tigers, Colavito enjoyed career highs of 45 home runs, 140 RBI and 129 runs scored as the team led the Major Leagues in scoring; he placed eighth in the MVP race. While in Detroit, he played left field, because Al Kaline was established in right field.

Yet Tiger fans didn't take to him the same way as those in Cleveland, preferring the more consistent Kuenn; and sportswriter Joe Falls, who viewed Colavito as a "self-ordained deity", started a feature chronicling the runs he failed to drive in. In one game, Falls - acting as the official scorer - charged Colavito with a controversial error, and the outfielder tried to attack him; and on May 12, 1961, he was ejected from the game after climbing into the stands to go after a drunken fan who had been insulting his wife and father. The Detroit journalist kept a statistic on Colavito during his years as a member of the Detroit Tigers. When Colavito stranded a runner, Falls would give him an RNBI (Run Not Batted In). This infuriated Colavito and created a tense relationship between the two for several years. After his excellent 1961 season, he drew the local fans' criticism by holding out for a higher salary than established team star Al Kaline.

Return to the Indians

He was traded to the Athletics (by that time in Kansas City) after the 1963 season, but spent only one year with the team, becoming one of the youngest players to reach the 300-home-run mark. In 1965, with Gabe Paul running the Indians, Colavito was brought back; but to obtain the slugger in a three-team deal, Paul had to send the White Sox pitcher Tommy John, who would play until 1986 and win 286 games after the trade, as well as Tommie Agee, who won the Rookie of the Year award in 1966, then became the New York Mets' top hitter in 1969 as they won their first pennant.

Colavito made his last years in Cleveland worthwhile, making the All-Star team in 1965 and 1966 and placing fifth in the 1965 MVP vote after leading the league with 108 RBI and 93 walks while finishing among the AL's top five in home runs, hits and runs, as well as playing without an error in the outfield. In July 1967 he was traded to the Chicago White Sox after hitting only .241; he hit .221 with the Sox, who finished three games out of first, and was sent to the Los Angeles Dodgers before the next season, batting .204 with 3 home runs in his National League debut. Later in that final season of 1968, with his last team, his boyhood idol Yankees, he became the last position player until Brent Mayne in 2000 to be credited as the winning pitcher in a game, earned in a scoreless two and two-thirds inning relief appearance in the first game of a doubleheader - against his former team, the league-leading Detroit Tigers. Not only did he face down Al Kaline and Willie Horton, he further vexed the Tigers by scoring the winning run for the Yanks in the eighth inning. He also homered in the second game. Colavito's pitching feat was not seen again in the AL until May 6, 2012, when Baltimore Oriole Chris Davis earned a win.

Later career

Colavito coached for the Indians in the 1970s and the Kansas City Royals in the early to mid 1980s.

In 1982 Colavito and Royals Manager Dick Howser were involved in a traffic accident and struggle with police. Howser and Colavito were convicted of interfering with police and received 90-day jail sentences. Both successfully appealed and served six months of probation.

Colavito was involved in the 1983 pine tar game and was ejected for arguing the umpires' decision to negate George Brett's home run and call him out, which would have given the Yankees the win. (The decision was later overturned. When the game was resumed several days later with the Royals in the lead as the result of Brett's home run, the Royals held the lead and won the game.)

Legacy

In his 1,841-game career, Colavito batted .266 with 374 HRs, 1,159 RBI, 971 runs, 1,730 hits, 283 doubles and 21 triples. As an outfielder, he recorded 3323 putouts, 123 assists, 26 double plays, and committed 70 errors in 3516 total chances for a .980 fielding percentage. In 1976 he was voted the most memorable personality in Indians history, and in 2001 he received a huge ovation at the introduction of the Indians' All-Century team.

In 1994, Terry Pluto, who covered the Indians for The Plain Dealer in the 1980s and became the top sports columnist for the Akron Beacon Journal (but returned to The Plain Dealer in 2007), published The Curse of Rocky Colavito, a book that tried to explain why the Indians had not come within even 11 games of first place since 1959. His explanation was that the trade of Colavito in 1960 sent the team on a path to mediocrity that lasted more than three decades, also suggesting that the trade to bring Colavito back was as bad as the one that sent him away.

When the Indians finally won their first pennant in 41 years in 1995, Pluto wrote a sequel, Burying the Curse. The Indians also won the pennant in 1997, but lost the World Series both times, the second time after needing just two more outs in Game 7 to win. Insisting that the curse was still in effect, Pluto wrote Our Tribe, a history of the team, in 1999. As of 2013, the Indians have not won another pennant since 1997, and have not won the World Series since 1948. The book "Portrait of a Franchise: An Intimate Look at Cleveland Indians Baseball During the Rockin' Sixties" by Doug Kurkul reflects on Colavito's unique contributions to the Indians, and argues a case for his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

On July 29, 2006, Colavito, along with Ray Chapman, Addie Joss, Sam McDowell, Al Rosen, Herb Score and manager Al López, was inducted into the Cleveland Indians' Hall of Fame.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]