Father’s Day (Observed)
In 1961, an impulsive, potentially-dangerous, and ultimately unrequited act of love inspired the nation.
It’s Father’s Day in the U.S. today, and Project 3.18 decided to show our love for all the dads out there by sending this one a day early, ensuring they (and everyone else!) have some quality internet reading to enjoy in quiet moments between fetes.
Our story is not about Father’s Day, the national holiday, taking place as it did about a month prior, but it is about a father’s day, the care of a devoted son…and an ejection, issued with understanding, sympathy, and even a little admiration.
Friday, May 12, 1961 was a cool, misty night in the Bronx. Spring rain delayed the game at Yankee Stadium by 30 minutes, leaving the field wet and the spectators damp and chilled. The assembled fans included a healthy chunk of Detroit Tiger rooters, with a big cluster seated behind the visitors’ third-base dugout, cheering for one player in particular. For the Tigers’ slugging left fielder, Rocco Colavito Jr., Yankee games often doubled as unofficial family reunions.
Rocky Colavito was a native of the Bronx. “I had 27 people here,” he said that night. “My father, Rocco, who is 60, my wife Carmen, my [older] brother Dominick, and others.” Apparently lumped into this latter catch-all was Colavito’s sister, Mrs. Calra Susi, who was present, according to Rocco, but never mentioned by Rocky. Perhaps they were not close.
The Colavito/Susi delegation contributed 27 people to the largest Yankee Stadium crowd of the young season: 23,556 people. That number felt really low to us for the city, the team, and the season, but we double-checked and it’s accurate. These Yankees were going to win 109 games, the club’s third-best showing ever and the best since the 1927 Yankees won 110. This was a historically-special team, but the Stadium didn’t even approach capacity until a Mother’s Day doubleheader a few days later.
Were people getting bored of Mickey Mantle et al.? Perhaps so: Mantle sat that night with a sore calf, though he did make a late pinch-hit appearance. No Mantle + bad weather = best attendance of the year…we don’t get it.
It was early in the season, but that night, the Tigers were in first place in the American League, 2.5 games ahead of the Yankees and opening a four-game series with the reigning AL champs.
After eight innings, the score was tied, 3-3, when a disturbance kicked off behind the third base visitors’ dugout. It was still going on as the teams changed fields, with Detroit coming in to bat, and Rocky Colavito and the other Tigers looked in the direction of the nearby fight. The left fielder immediately realized the trouble involved members of his family.
Colavito knew this because he used a rather unusual marker to keep track of his group, explaining, “I couldn’t miss seeing my father because I knew the hat he was wearing; it’s an odd, old-fashioned hat.” And we’ll continue the story in a minute,
In 1961, what kind of hat would a young man from New York City have found odd and old-fashioned enough to use as a visual landmark? Project 3.18 must know.
We were able to find one photo of the scene. We’re not going to give you the whole photo because the quality is pretty poor and because generally we’re not supposed to do that. It was taken in the aftermath of the disturbance, from the field looking toward the dugout and stands behind. It’s a wide shot, and none of the civilians are identified, but there is an older-looking man, standing just behind the Tigers’ dugout, looking toward Colavito and wearing what Project 3.18 would characterize as a distinctive piece of headwear, which you can see near the very top of the frame:
Our best guess? That is Rocco Colavito Sr. and he’s wearing a Trilby. According to Wikipedia (as deep as we’re bothering to go for this), the Trilby hat reached “the zenith of its popularity” in the 1960s, but certainly not among the nation’s youth. So, to 27-year-old Rocky Colavito, such a hat would certainly have seemed “odd and old-fashioned” in 1961. Another blank spot in the historical record filled in by Project 3.18. Chills.
Seeing a familiar Trilby hat “bobbing” in distress amidst a roiling knot of people, Rocky Colavito “amazed the crowd” by vaulting over a wire gate and “racing into the stands.” Jack Homel, the Tigers’ trainer, tried to intervene, but “[Colavito] was gone before I could say what I wanted to try and stop him.” Fans and police surged around the unexpected visitor, slowing his charge.
“I got close,” Colavito said, “but not close enough. Some big son-of-a-gun got a hold on my back and stopped me. Maybe he was just trying to help me.”
In fact, Colavito was correct. Joe King1, writing for The Sporting News, somehow tracked down the aforementioned son-of-a-gun, identifying him as “a well-known Tigers fan2” named Rip Collins. “I didn’t want him to get into trouble,” Collins said of his manhandling. “I had no idea his dad was involved. I kept yelling while I tried to stop him: ‘Rocky, you can’t do this.’”
Meanwhile, the New York police had arrived behind the dugout and restored order while Homel “organized a posse” to go after Colavito, deputizing center fielder Bill Bruton, catcher Dick Brown, third baseman Steve Boros, and pitcher Jim Bunning. These Tigers collectively followed their teammate into the stands, but fortunately “none got to punching.” The burly fan Collins released Colavito into their custody and they gingerly escorted him back down to the field, where somebody got a photograph.
Lt. Bernard Toner, in charge of the police detailed to Yankee Stadium took charge: “There was a disturbance and we took one lad who might have had a few drinks and put him out. As no complaint was made, we did not take his name.” The fan was reportedly released into the custody of a sober friend and lost to history.3
Colavito’s off-field excursion and the resulting shoving and milling delayed the game by approximately ten minutes. As he returned to the dugout, umpire Ed Hurley, working third base, drew the Tigers’ (hitherto) left fielder aside for a quiet word.
“Hurley was very nice about it,” Colavito said. “He said, ‘I know how you feel–after all, it’s your father–but I have to throw you out just the same.’”
“I had to put him out of the game,” Hurley explained to Tigers manager Bob Scheffing. “He violated the rule.” That would be Rule 3.03 (in 1961), which said that players in uniform could not enter the stands to mingle or fraternize with fans, and let’s dig into that a little more.
By 1971 (the rulebook edition from which Project 3.18 takes its name and which we keep on hand to consult), the relevant edict had been bumped to 3.09, but in both versions it was a longstanding rule meant to curtail willing conspiracy between ballplayers and gamblers, or the appearance thereof:
Players in uniform shall not address or mingle with spectators, nor sit in the stands before, during, or after a game. No manager, coach, or player shall address any spectator before or during a game. Players of opposing teams shall not fraternize at any time while in uniform.
Colavito said he was restrained before he could fight anyone, and that the altercation ended before he could get close. And even umpire Hurley said he “did not see Colavito throw a punch or hit anybody.” Even if he had, the cited rule doesn’t specifically prohibit fighting. It prohibits sitting down, but Colavito didn’t do that. It prohibits addressing, but Colavito didn’t get close enough to his targets to speak with them. So, under Rule 3.03/09, what was his crime?
While “mingle” is mostly used in a context of milquetoast social interaction, a more basic definition is “to mix together,” which is what Colavito did when he went over that gate. And the rule in question does prohibit that activity.
Therefore, he was thrown out for “mingling.”
Scheffing, the Tigers’ manager, entered an official protest regarding the ejection. “I told Hurley I had to protest because I did not know about the rule.” Way to make your case there, Bob.
The damage could have been much worse. Accounts varied, but anywhere between four and six Tigers mingled their way after Colavito into the stands, and Ed Hurley was one of the most prolific ejectors of men in American League history, a real stickler. But he was also the son of a father, and father himself, and that night he felt genuine empathy for Colavito and the other players trying to look out for him.
Hurley said, “I told Colavito right away that he was out of the game because there is a rule that any player who invades any fan area anywhere in the park must be put out. However, I didn’t want to put out all the rest unless I had to, and I called over [home plate umpire] Jim Honochick to discuss.”
The two umpires decided the other Tigers had been “acting as peacemakers” and left them in the game.
In the visitors’ ninth, the Tigers’ pitcher, Frank Lary, working on a complete game, hit a solo home run into the lower left field stands to break the tie and finish a real “Dear Diary” day in his career. Scheffing and the rest of the Tigers’ bench “danced with joy,” and the manager decided to withdraw his earlier protest, which was probably for the best.
Lary returned to the mound in the ninth and had to face Mantle as a pinch-hitter with two men on base and two outs. He walked the most dangerous hitter in baseball and got the next man, Clete Boyer, to ground out and end the game. The win boosted Lary’s career win-loss record against the one of the greatest eras of Yankee teams up to 25-8. You bet he got a nickname out of it.
Afterward, Colavito was eager to explain his behavior:
I was about to step into the dugout when I saw the fighting and when I saw this drunken slob swinging at my father, I ran right into the stands. But I couldn’t get to them. The police were already there. Three guys were holding Dom, who also was there trying to step in. If he had been able to get away I would have bet on him.
Dom told me later that this fellow was annoying my wife and that he [and Colavito Sr.] had gotten into an argument with him about it.
He then turned his dilemma over the assembled reporters.
At a time like that, do you think about the rules–or anything? What would you fellows do if you saw someone attacking your father?
“Well, I did it. I went after him. He’s 60 years old and I’m not going to let anyone take a swing at him whether it happens in Yankee Stadium or anywhere else. I’m sorry it happened, but I’d do it all over again.
“And I think you gentlemen would all do the same,” he concluded, appealing to the “red-blooded American manhood” of the press, according to Joe King.
This was an era of enjoyably breathless, tabloid-y headlines, sometimes delivered two at a time, as if the editor could not decide which they loved more. In them, the press rendered their verdict. We’ve reproduced some semblance of the styling, too:
Orlando Sentinel: “No Time to Think About Rules: Colavito”
Detroit Free Press: “LEAPS INTO STANDS, OUT OF GAME / Dad in Fight, Rock to Rescue”
The Sporting News: “Colavito Rockets Into Stands in Answering Call of the Clan / Raging Rocky Hurdles Rail, Dashes to Rescue of Pop in Yankee Stadium Melee”
Today we call this “a PR victory.”
Rocco Colavito Sr. gave his side of things4 to the Associated Press the next day. A bit perplexed by the sudden and intense attention to what had transpired, the elder Rock kept his account concise:
These two guys were making wise cracks. Dominick asked them a couple of times to cut it out but they kept it up. One of them started to put his arms on Carmen’s shoulder. Dominick told him to cut it out. So did I. Then all of a sudden one of these guys takes a wild swing.
That was the point at which Rocky happened to be coming in from left field, prompting his impromptu excursion.
Even with some time to process what had happened, Mr. Colavito didn’t seem as moved by his son’s reaction as most national newspapers had been. “I could have handled it myself all right. After all, I’m no weakling.” Here the AP explained that Rocco was a truck driver by trade, but did not say if this was evidence for or against his assertion.
Asked what he said to his son afterward, from Rocco’s response, we get a real sense of what young Rocky’s home life was probably like. Imagine this line being delivered at a kitchen table, from behind and over the top of an open newspaper:
“I told Rocky the important thing was that he got a triple and the Tigers won. We could have taken care of our end of the night by ourselves.”
Colavito got more affection from Joe Cronin, the American League president, who declined to fine or suspend him for the May 12 infraction. Cronin told writers in his Boston office that he figured ejection from the game was sufficient punishment.
“It wasn’t the right thing for the boy to go up in the stands, but I guess it was natural for him to want to help his father.”
“I’ve never seen a player jump into the stands in uniform,” Cronin said. “I remember [when Senators left fielder] Goose Goslin changed his clothes one day in Washington and then went up there after a heckler.5”
The next game, the not-suspended Colavito hit two home runs plus a pair of singles and the Tigers won 8-3. Project 3.18 alum Phil Regan, 24 years old, pitched for Detroit and threw a complete game. The Tigers improved to 4.5 games ahead and Colavito embarked on a home-run tear, but none of this really matters because this was 1961 and New York went on to win everything.
But not even the Yankee’s perpetual brilliance could obscure the moral lesson Rocky Colavito delivered to America that night: If you see someone take a cheap shot at your dad, you have to try and fight them. 63 years later, the maxim continues to resonate.
And while your father may not visibly appreciate or even acknowledge such an act of love, rest assured that he probably does, on the inside.
Project 3.18 wishes all the dads out there a very happy Father’s Day. We see you guys, especially your odd, old-fashioned hats.
And a special word to our own regular reader and wonderful father, who, if he had been in uniform at Yankee Stadium on May 12, 1961, would have surely joined up with Homel’s posse of peacemakers. Love you, dude!
Next week we’re going to start on a project that has taken greater prominence in our hearts and minds since April, when Ken Holtzman passed away at the age of 78. As we wrote in that sad but appreciative moment, Ken was the first former major league baseball player to do an interview with Project 3.18 (in his own way, as we’ll explain), and with a little help from Ken himself, we’re eager to start sharing some of that story.
On May 24: “Ken’s Way”
Joe King is a name we’ll need to keep an eye out for in our 1960s research. In this story, at least, he deployed some impressively-purple prose: “The left fielder plowed through the elite Stadium pewholders until a mass of humanity, the cops, and his teammates checked his 190 pounds of outraged energy.” ...this is writing we’d never write but love to read.
We’ll take King’s word for it.
Unless someone reading has heard the other side of this story, kept like a family heirloom from long ago, and knows who this guy was? We know this is a moonshot but we have to keep trying one of these days, someone will comment, “Hey, I think that hooligan was my uncle!”
Headline for this interview: “Says Rocky’s Dad/ We Didn’t Need Him To Help Us”
Yes, we clocked this for future attention. Also, go up and read rule 3.09 one more time and appreciate what Goslin did to try and get around it.
What a great story. You guys are terrific.
Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there! ❤️