“Well, hi everybody, welcome to New York Yankee baseball. I’m Phil Rizzuto along with Bill White.”
The Baseball-loving children of the tri-state area during 1970s and 1980s lived for those two sentences. We would turn on WPIX, wait for the “Here Come The Yankees” theme song to play and then for the camera to pan to the booth to see “The Scooter” Phil Rizzuto and Bill White.
Night after summer night, we would have the same broadcast team welcoming us to watch our team. Phil Rizzuto was more than a broadcaster though. We felt like he was one of us.