Three in Four DaysRobert Palazzo February 2002 took a large bite out of the Yankee family. Three former Yankee players died within four days of each other. Two were teammates, and played during the days of Dickey, Henrich and Joe D; the other arrived 30 years later Emerson Roser, Jim Spencer, and Frank Crosetti
The first to leave us was Emerson 'Steve' Roser. Steve died Friday, February 8th. His death
didn't make it to the national press nor the ESPN web site, but it did command special
consideration in my home town Utica, NY. Steve was born in Rome, NY, about 15 miles west
of Utica, in 1918. After a successful career as a student athlete at Clarkson University,
playing basketball (he was 6'4") and pitching (his record was 20-4), he signed with the
Yankees in 1939 as a pitcher. He played for the Yankees for three years and the Boston
Braves for a year and a half prior to retiring from major league baseball due to an elbow
injury. He appeared in 45 games as a reliever and spot starter during his career, finishing
with a 6-5 record, an ERA of 4.04, 64 strike outs and 64 walks in 149.1 innings pitched.
In studying Roser's pitching stats while with the Yankees, I found the following:
In addition, he only surrendered four home runs in those 114.1 innings while with the Yankees. Not numbers that will get you Major League Baseball Hall of Fame consideration, but to anyone who met him, he was a hall of fame caliber gentleman. After retiring, he returned to Utica and refereed basketball, owned and operated a sporting goods business, and later a popular restaurant. I didn't know him when he ran either business but I did meet him later in life in 1995. He was attending the annual SUNY Institute of Technology Athletic Booster Club Dinner. Having been previously inducted into the Booster Club's Hall of Fame, he religiously returned each year to welcome the newly inducted honorees. Although Steve would only get into the Baseball Hall of Fame as a paying customer, he was a gifted athlete and was inducted into the Rome Sports Hall of Fame, the Clarkson University Athletic Hall of Fame, the Utica Sports Hall of Fame and the State University of New York (SUNY) Wildcats' Hall of Fame. His daughter was quoted as saying that these honors meant as much to him as playing for the Yankees. His daughter said her father considered his manager Hall of Famer Joe McCarthy to be the "greatest" and she remembered a story about McCarthy that stayed with Roser because of the pride the manager demanded from his players. Once while in Chicago, Roser and two teammates were standing outside a hotel with their suit jackets off when McCarthy got out of a cab. His daughter continued "He said. 'I thought the Yankees were staying here.' They said, 'Yes, they are.' McCarthy said that couldn't be because the players were not dressed like Yankees. They wouldn't be walking around without their suit coats on." About his name, his obituary makes no mention of "Steve," only Emerson C. Roser. But he autographed a newspaper article for me with "Em 'Steve' Roser" (although the first time I met him he told me he couldn't write and signed a big X' where I had expected his autograph to be put) and a visit to the official Yankee web site will reveal none other than one "Steve Roser" on their all time roster. In 1999, I was fortunate to witness a reunion between Steve and Phil Rizzuto. It was at an autograph signing event that Phil was attending for our chapter of the Mickey Mantle Foundation. Watching Steve walking around and pacing nervously, awaiting Scooter's arrival, was a real trip. When Scooter entered the building and saw Roser standing there, he put his arms around him and yelled out "You son of a gun, you" and the smile on Roser's face was priceless. I wish I had taken a picture. Phil is about 5'6" 150 lbs and Roser was 6'4", and let's just say over 200 lbs. Steve never earned more than $28,000 as a major leaguer. About his short stint with the Yankees, Steve said in a 1996 interview, "They treated you very well, that's for sure. I'm very proud to be a Yankee." The second Yankee to leave us during that four day stretch was Jim Spencer. Jim died Sunday, February 10th. He died of an apparent heart attack and had played in a charity baseball game the day before. He was a two-time gold glove winner (1970, 1977) and the 11th player selected in baseball's first amateur draft in 1965. His lifetime batting average was .250 and he hit 146 home runs during his 15 year career. Jim Spencer played for the Yankees from 1978 through 1981. I don't want to minimize his contribution to the Yankees, but at the moment the most notable thing I can say about Spencer's playing days is that his picture appears on the upper right side of Ron Guidry's picture (Guidry is positioned in the middle) on the Burger King poster of the 1978 Yankees that is hanging on my office door. Spencer was a member of that historic Yankee team that fought back from a 14 game deficit to force a play off game (only the second in history) with the Boston Red Sox. His bat did provide the Yankee lineup with some power, especially in 1979, when he batted .288, with 23 home runs and 53 RBIs. After retiring, Spencer served as a scout for the Yankees and also was involved in promotions, such as the children's hospital charity baseball game mentioned earlier. The third player to pass on was Frank "Frankie Crow" Crosetti, who died on Monday, February 11th. Making his debut with the Yankees in 1932, Crosetti was among the last of the links to the legendary names of Yankee baseball lore. Along with club house manager Pete Sheehy, Crosetti spanned several generations of Yankee teams and carried on the bloodline started by Ruth and Gehrig in the '20s-'30s, and continued by Joe D., Scooter Rizzuto and others in the '30s and '40s, Yogi, Whitey, and Mickey in the '50s-'60s. Crosetti was the starting shortstop for the team from 1932-1940, until Rizzuto took over in 1941. After retiring in 1948, he coached third base for the Yankees, where he was a fixture for 20 more years. As a player, Crosetti had a lifetime batting average of .245; not quite reaching 100 home runs, ending with a total of 98 for his career. He was a two time all star and set a major league record for plate appearances in a 154 game schedule with 757 in 1938. After being replaced as the starting shortstop in 1941, Crosetti's playing time increased during World War II, peaking to 441 at bats in 1945. But after that, his time was spent mostly on the bench: 59 at bats in '46, 1 at bat in '47 and in '48, his final season, playing second base, Crosetti was 4 for 14, batting .286. Originally signed by the San Francisco Seals of the PCL in 1928, Crosetti played three seasons for them. He joined the Yankees and another San Francisco native, future Hall of Famer Tony Lazzeri. Several years later, the famous trio of Yankee players, all natives of San Francisco and all of Italian origin, was complete when Joe DiMaggio joined the Yankees in 1935. Crosetti told Newsday in 1991 about the time that he and Lazzeri were instructed by the Yankees to drive DiMaggio to spring training in St. Pertersburg, Florida (I assume it was DiMaggio's rookie year in 1935.) As Crosetti told it, "Tony didn't talk too much and DiMag didn't say a word. He just sat in the backseat and looked out the window. Tony and I shared the driving. We would go two or three hours and then look at the other guy and say, 'Wanna drive?' and then we'd shift places. Sometimes that was all the conversation in the car. Finally, on about the third day, I said to Tony: 'Let's let the kid drive.' So he turned to him in the backseat and said, 'Wanna drive, kid?' And DiMag said, 'I don't know how.' I don't know if he was pulling our legs or not." And so now these three have been laid to rest, and will be recognized during a solemn moment this summer in Yankee Stadium, as Yankee PA announcer Bob Shepard, as he does every year during player introductions at the Old Timers Game, reads the names of members of the Yankee family that have left us since the previous Old Timers Game. Leave feedback on our message board. |