CLEVELAND, Ohio – It has been almost 59 years exactly since the trade that jettisoned Cleveland Indians slugger Rocky Colavito, a fan favorite if ever there were one, to the Detroit Tigers for Harvey Kuenn.
Colavito remains beloved - a hard-hitting player, good-looking, nice guy. Even though he retired in 1968, he's remembered by those who saw him play and known by fans who came along years later. He endeared himself to the city during his stints with the Indians, 1955-59 and 1965-67.
That love for Colavito continues with fans like Ida Pocci. And Pocci wants to make sure others don't forget him, either.
She is spearheading a drive to urge the Indians to erect a statue in his honor. She started an online petition last year via gopetition.com (type "Rocky Colavito" in the search). This season, she has started toting a printed petition that she hopes people will sign at the 20 to 25 games she attends. She has a few dozen so far, 160 or so online, and wants to collect 5,000.
"There are many reasons that I think he deserves it," she said Sunday as she took in the ballgame and sought signatures. "I think he was a role model for kids. He had a rapport with the fans." Colavito hit .266 over 14 Major League seasons and pounded out 374 home runs.
Bob DiBiasio, the team's senior vice president of public affairs, agrees on an emotional level with Pocci. But team policy keeps Colavito out.
"Every kid in the neighborhood put their bat behind their neck," emulating Colavito, remembers the 64-year-old DiBiasio, who grew up in Lakewood. "We think the world of Rocky. Which is why around the ballpark you will see salutes to Rocky in various ways - upper-deck mural, historical moments."
He added: "I love Ida's passion. I would probably sign the petition myself as Rocky was my hero growing up. He's the reason my favorite number is 6. He's an absolute generational hero.
"Unfortunately, when it comes to honoring the legends of our past, things become a little more complicated."
DiBiasio said the Indians honor past players four ways: The top 100 team, compiled for the organization's 100th anniversary in 2001; the team's hall of fame, which has more than 40 players; retired uniforms, and statues.
Eight former Indians have numbers retired: Earl Averill, Lou Boudreau, Larry Doby, Bob Feller, Mel Harder, Bob Lemon, Frank Robinson and Jim Thome.
Statues outside Progressive Field are of three Hall of Famers - Lou Boudreau, Larry Doby and Bob Feller.
The team-policy barometer for which players are honored is stringent. For a jersey number to be retired or a statue to be erected, the player must be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. (Harder is an exception because, as DiBiasio says, he spent 36 years with the Major League club - 20 as an Indians player, 16 as a pitching coach.)
And, DiBiasio added, “he should be in the (National Baseball) Hall of Fame.”
For the team hall-of-fame consideration, he said, minimum requirements are that a player have played for the Indians for three full seasons and be retired at least one year.
It would be prudent for the team to revisit the top 100 because with each passing season players come along who might merit inclusion. In the mid-1970s, Colavito was voted as the fans’ favorite all-time Indian. While he still holds a special place in fans’ hearts even 40 years later, how would the vote go today, with the likes of Omar Vizquel, Thome, Corey Kluber and Francisco Lindor?
Statutes outside the centerfield gates honor a trio of Indians greats: Lou Boudreau, Larry Doby and Bob Feller. Inside stands an image of Jim Thome. A few feet away, Robinson's statue is amid the semi-circle of plaques in Heritage Park's upper level.
While the Indians respect the past with the memories enshrined in Heritage Park and other places, the Colavito trade remains as a dark cloud over team history.
On April 17, 1960, General Manager Frank Lane dealt Colavito to the Detroit Tigers for Harvey Kuenn. That deal ignited an onslaught of hate mail for Lane - who Colavito wasn't particularly fond of - as well as the supposed curse Plain Dealer columnist Terry Pluto posited in his 1994 book, "The Curse of Rocky Colavito." Colavito left Cleveland, and the team sunk into the mire of the American League for much of three decades.
It was a monster deal, and a strange one: The teams swapped heavy hitters straight up. In 1959, Kuenn won the American League batting title while Colavito led the league with 42 home runs.
(Colavito lives in Pennsylvania. Kuenn, who was the 1953 American League Rookie of the Year, became a manager and died at 57, in 1988. Lane died in a Texas nursing home at age 86 in 1981.)
Colavito was so beloved that two days after the trade Emily Fitzgibbons, president of the Rocky Colavito Fan Club, told The Plain Dealer the club would go on, 632 members strong. She had started the club in 1956. At one time it was believed to have the largest membership of any fan club for a Major Leaguer. Dues were 50 cents and included a subscription of The Rocket, a newsletter.
While Colavito is not in the baseball Hall of Fame, fans - especially Baby Boomers - cherish their memories. A Facebook Rocky Colavito fan club was created in 2008. Pocci is a pleasant person and shows a hint of impatience only when talking about the Baseball Hall of Fame's Golden Days era committee's consideration of those who played from 1950 to 1969. That vote rotates with other era committees and will next consider players in 2020 for induction in 2021.
"I'm not willing to wait for that," Pocci said. "That's why I think we should persuade the (team owners) Dolans to make an exception because of how beloved he is and how important he was to team history."
The Rocky Colavito Fan Club was started in the 1950s.
Pocci, who was not a member of the fan club when Colavito played, “was just a big fan” growing up on the West Side of Cleveland. She was 9 when Colavito was traded. But when he was traded back to the team in 1965, “something clicked.”
What she found was a "gracious" ballplayer who made time for her and other fans.
Her parents would drive her to the airport to gather with fans to greet the team when it arrived. She would bake cakes for Colavito and deliver them to the clubhouse. Afterward, she said, he would seek her out to say how much he and his teammates enjoyed them. He'd take time to sign autographs.
It's those sentiments, she said, that are pushing her campaign.
"The statues around Progressive Field should reflect every era, and they don't," she said.
"For those of us who grew up watching baseball in the late '50s, early '60s, there wasn't a bigger hero. He was baseball, he was the Cleveland Indians."
Dolan and DiBiasio were "gracious enough to answer me" when she wrote them. But now, she is stepping up her campaign.
"It's time for us to push and let them know how many people are behind this and really want this for Rocky."
"All I have to do is hold the sign and people come up to me," she said.
“I know the support is there. It’s letting the Indians organization know it’s there.”
Ida Pocci will be bringing her petition to games this season.
https://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/2019/04/can-rocky-colavito-get-a-statue-in-progressive-field.html
2019-04-07 20:44:00Z
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