Before Di Maggio, the Yankees had Lazzeri

By Joe Guzzardi

trial had the other three: murderers, the second; burglars and arsonists, the third, and minor offenders, the fourth. Seven- and eight-year old homeless children were thrown into cells with prostitutes, alcoholics and cutpurses.

But John Thorn, Major League Baseball’s Official Historian, delved into Charles A. Hemstreet’s 1899 book, “Nooks and Corners of Old New York,” and learned that Murderer’s Row referred to a lower Manhattan neighborhood once populated by “evil doers.” Eventually, Hemstreet wrote, the police drove out the criminals, and turned their homes over to Italians who were “excessively poor” and endured “a hard struggle for life.”

Lazzeri’s impoverished parents, Julia and Agostino, left Genoa in 1903. On the ship’s manifest, Agostino’s occupation was listed as peasant. The couple settled in San Francisco’s rough and tumble Cow Hollow section, and by year end Anthony Michael was born. Fred Glueckstein’s Society for American Baseball Research essay, “Tony Lazzeri,” recounted the story of the young man’s expulsion from school at age 15, his promising semiprofessional boxing and sandlot baseball careers.

Tony also worked with his father as a pipefitter’s apprentice and, while heating and hauling rivets, developed his powerful upper body. Strong shoulders and forearms helped Lazzeri hit a career 292 with 178 home runs, and drive in 1,194 runs. Lazzeri was the first player to hit two grand slams in a single game. In May 1936, Lazzeri set a new baseball record when he hit six home runs in three consecutive games, a feat that not even the great Bambino could match. During the same month, Lazzeri set an American League single-game record with 11 RBIs by hitting a triple and three home runs, two with the bases filled, in Shibe Park.

At age 18, Lazzeri took his first step toward the major league. Lazzari landed a contract with the minor league Salt Lake City Bees, but bounced around unimpressively for a few seasons. In 1925, however, Lazzeri blasted a then-minor league record 60 home runs. Suddenly, scouts took notice. But Lazzeri faced two roadblocks. First, anti-Italian prejudice was commonplace, and ethnic animus scared off the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds.

Second,Lazzeri had a medical condition that he had kept secret for years; he was epileptic. But the Yankees’ savvy general manager Ed Barrow knew that about 1 million Italians lived in and around New York, all prospective ticket buyers. On March 30, 1926, the Yankees signed Lazzeri for $5,000. Barrow gambled on Lazzari and won. The first major league game Lazzeri saw was the first he played in, April 23, 1926, on a cold day at Boston’s Fenway Park in front of 11,000 fans. Lazzari was hit by a pitch, singled, walked, scored a run, and drove a run in, a successful outing for a 22-year-old rookie.

As the first great Italian-heritage Yankee, New York’s Italian fans took great pride in Lazzeri. Thousands of Italians experienced baseball for the first time, and returned again and again. At Yankee Stadium, fans’ “Poosh-‘Em Up Tony” rally cry implored him to slug the ball, preferably out of the ballpark. The New York Times compared Lazzeri favorably to another great Italian, Christopher Columbus: “He didn’t discover America, but Columbus never went behind third for an overthrow to cut-off the tying run in the ninth inning.” A manager’s dream, the all-purpose Lazzeri played all the infield positions with equal precision.

Barrow later wrote effusively about Lazzeri. “In our comeback from a calamitous seventh-place finish [in 1925] to a championship in 1926, there is one man who stands out above all others, Tony Lazzeri. He was the making of that ball club, holding it together, guiding it, and inspiring it. He was one of the greatest ballplayers I have ever known.” Lazzeri achieved his baseball successes despite his ongoing battle against epilepsy, and the phenobarbital he took, a drug that slowed his reflexes, and kept him from reaching even greater on-the-field heights.

By 1938, Lazzeri’s batting average had fallen to .244, and the Yankees released him. After brief appearances with the Cubs, the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers, in 1939 Lazzeri packed up and returned to San Francisco.

One failure, amidst a glowing career, haunted Lazzeri, and dogged him until the day he died. In the 1926 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, the Yankees had loaded the bases, and Lazzeri was next up. Behind 3-2 in the bottom of the seventh, and with two out, a Lazzeri hit would put the Yankees ahead. But the Cards summoned Hall of Fame pitcher Grover “Pete” Alexander to the mound. Lazzeri fanned, the Cards won the game and the World Series. Later, Lazzeri recalled with disappointment that “there’s never a night” when an underinformed fan doesn’t approach him in a bar or restaurant to pester him about his one baseball failure.

Lazzeri’s life ended too soon, and too sadly. In August 1946, Lazzeri’s wife found him slumped over their San Francisco home’s landing, dead from a heart attack at age 42. Many years passed before the Baseball Hall of Fame acknowledged Lazzeri’s greatness. The Veterans Committee inducted Lazzeri in 1991. As his Yankee teammate Crosetti said about Lazzeri, Tony not only was a great ballplayer, he was also a great man, a leader and a valued strategist on the diamond.