O Holy Cow!: The Selected Verse of Phil Rizzuto

Hall of Fame shortstop and Yankees broadcaster extraordinaire, the incomparable Phil Rizutto (1917-2007) waxed poetic on America's favorite pastime from the glorious days of Mantle and Maris well into the reign of Jeter and Rivera. For more than a quarter century the Bard of the Booth captured great moments in baseball—and effortlessly interwove them with essential and often hilarious insights into the human condition.

In loving commemoration and celebration of the life and career of an exceptional Man of Baseball, this new edition of O Holy Cow! includes a new foreword by baseball legend Bobby Murcer, a new poem written by editors Tom Peyer and Hart Seely, and more than sixty additional never-before-published masterworks of short, impromptu verse that capture the unmistakable voice of the unforgettable Rizzuto.

Plus, I miss Bill White's good-natured chuckling.

Still, these "poems" are pretty good at bringing back long-gone hot summer nights.


who knew?   January 15, 2002
 12 out of 14 found this review helpful

In the late 1970s, when the Mets really hit the skids and the Yankees got good again, it became necessary, if you were a kid in the Tri- State
area, to at least watch the Yankees, perhaps even to grudgingly root for them. Forced into this spiritually untenable position, I chose to only
root for the scrubs, which made Cliff Johnson my favorite player. I'll never forget the game where he tagged a pitch and Phil Rizzuto started
screaming that : "That one's outta here", bringing joy to the heart of every Heatchliff fan, only to have his towering popup caught by the
second baseman.

"The Scooter" was easy to laugh at, with his myriad phobias, his propensity for saying unintentionally offensive things about minorities, his
tendency to leave the ballpark early when the Yankees were home, etc. But then there began appearing in The Village Voice a most
remarkable feature : verbatim text from Scooter's broadcasts rendered as poetry. We were suddenly confronted with the frightening prospect
that Scooter was not only making sense, but serving up literature, even profundity. Consider the wisdom, about baseball and about life [....]

As it turns out, this kind of exercise even has a name, it's called "found poetry." The Rizzuto poems are as good as any I've seen[...].

At any rate, this book is a hoot and once you read it you'll never again think of Rizzuto as just a good glove man, nor listen to a baseball
broadcast without noticing the frequently poetic nature of the announcer's line of patter.

GRADE : A


A Wonderful Tribute   December 3, 1998
 6 out of 6 found this review helpful

For me, nothing better epitomizes my age of baseball innocence than falling in love with the WPIX broadcasts of Phil Rizzuto, Frank Messer and Bill White during the late 1970s. This offbeat collection of the Scooter's unintentional poetry in his broadcasts is a graphic illustration of why Rizzuto was a true joy in the broadcast booth even if he wasn't a professional in the Mel Allen-Red Barber mold. I loved the format so much that I've actually reviewed the hundreds of old Yankee radio and telecast tapes in my collection searching for supplements to the collected verse of the Scooter and have found enough that could fill a sequel volume. Thanks to Seely and Pyer for this wonderful collection that no Yankee fan should be without.