Cleveland icon Colavito, who hit 4 homers in a game, dies at 91

Rocky Colavito, a charismatic slugger who ranked among the most popular players in Cleveland baseball history and is among 18 players to hit four home runs in one MLB game, died on Tuesday. He was 91.

Colavito “passed peacefully at home today with family by his side in Bernville, Pennsylvania,” the Guardians said in a news release.

“Our collective hearts ache at the passing of Rocky,” said Guardians senior vice president/public affairs Bob DiBiasio. “Rocky was a generational hero, one of the most popular players in franchise history. His popularity was evident across Northeast Ohio as sandlot ballplayers everywhere imitated Rocky’s on-deck circle routine of kneeling, then as he stepped into the batter’s box the stretching the bat over the shoulders and pointing the bat at the pitcher. I can proudly say I was one of them. Rocky loved our organization and always held the fans in the highest esteem. He would always say, ‘I am thankful God chose me to play in Cleveland.’ We send our most sincere condolences to the entire Colavito family, as well as his many teammates and other organizations impacted by his passing.”

Colavito maintained a formidable presence at the plate throughout virtually his entire Major League career (1955-68), exceeding 20 home runs in a season for 11 consecutive years and topping the 40-homer mark three times in that span. During Cleveland’s 11-8 victory at Baltimore on June 10, 1959, Colavito became the eighth player to smack four homers in a game.

“I thought, every pitch, he seemed to be going for downtown,” said left-hander Al Downing, who faced Colavito regularly while pitching for the Yankees in the 1960s. “He swung that hard.”

Colavito’s style was made all the more distinctive by his tendency to level his bat and point it at the pitcher — a trait made familiar more recently by Hall of Famer Jim Thome, who also began his career with Cleveland.

Colavito also played for the Tigers, Kansas City A’s, White Sox, Dodgers and Yankees in a 14-year career spanning 1955-1968. He hit 374 home runs and was inducted into the Guardians Hall of Fame in 2006.

Rocco Domenico Colavito was born Aug. 10, 1933, in New York City. He gravitated toward baseball as a youth and grew up rooting for the Yankees. His favorite player was a fellow Italian-American, Joe DiMaggio. Colavito was so serious about launching a professional baseball career that he dropped out of Theodore Roosevelt High School in the Bronx after his sophomore year.

MLB rules prohibited Colavito from signing a professional contract until his high school class graduated. However, according to a biography published by the Society for American Baseball Research, Colavito filed an appeal with Commissioner Happy Chandler, who allowed Colavito to become eligible to turn pro after waiting just one year. Colavito agreed to terms with Cleveland for a $3,000 bonus and began his pro career in 1951 with the organization’s Class D Florida State League affiliate in Daytona Beach. He compiled a .275 batting average and a .492 slugging percentage while hitting 23 home runs.

While playing at Class A Reading in 1953, Colavito met Carmen Perrotti, a professional dancer. They were engaged a year later, and she joined him in Indianapolis, where he was playing Triple-A ball. After the season, they got married back in Reading. For a wedding gift, Indians general manager Hank Greenberg gave them three tickets to Game 1 and 2 of the World Series at the Polo Grounds.

“For me, my wife and my mother-in-law,” Colavito told the Lost Ballparks podcast in 2024. “You know it always pays to get in good with your mother-in-law.”

That meant Colavito was in the stands for Willie Mays’ remarkable over-the-shoulder catch.

“We were sitting in the upper deck between third and home,” he said on the podcast. “I thought it was a great catch, but I’ve seen Willie make better catches than that. Willie was the greatest player that I ever saw and played against.”

Colavito continued his ascent through Cleveland’s Minor League system, making his MLB debut on Sept. 10, 1955, at Fenway Park. He reached the Majors to stay in 1956.

Colavito’s potential appeared limitless early in his career. He belted 21 homers in his rookie season and finished second in the American League Rookie of the Year balloting behind White Sox shortstop Luis Aparicio. After adding 25 homers the following year, Colavito ascended to the game’s elite by hitting 41 homers in 1958 and an AL-best 42 in 1959.

The Indians spent 87 days in first place during the ’59 season before finishing second in the AL, five games behind the White Sox. Colavito, who turned 26 that year, was a source of hope for Cleveland fans who considered him the force that would enable the team to overwhelm the rest of the AL.

His rapidly burgeoning popularity also helped attendance at Cleveland Stadium soar from 663,805 in 1958 to 1,497,976 in ’59.

Then, two days before the 1960 season opener, Cleveland traded Colavito to the Tigers for outfielder Harvey Kuenn, the league’s batting champion with a .353 average in 1959. Indians general manager “Trader” Frank Lane was unhappy with Colavito’s request for a salary increase from $28,000 to $45,000. Colavito’s contract was renewed at $35,000, but Lane regarded him as a headache and sent him packing, proclaiming that he had swapped “a hamburger for a steak.”

Either way, most Cleveland fans felt like dead meat. A bond had been severed. Lane was never forgiven for casting off Colavito in what’s widely regarded as the worst trade in club history.

The Indians sank into mediocrity, drawing 950,985 and finishing 76-78 in 1960, 21 games behind the Yankees. Remaining a folk hero, Colavito was immortalized by Cleveland-based sportswriter Terry Pluto, who authored “The Curse of Rocky Colavito.” The 1993 book theorized that the Colavito trade prompted the team’s 34-year stretch from 1960-93 in which it finished within 11 games of first place only once (in the strike-shortened ’81 season). Cleveland reached the World Series in 1995, 1997 and 2016 but lost each time.

All the while, Colavito continued to hit. His homers, future Hall of Famer Jim Kaat said, “were more like semi-line drives. Particularly in Detroit, when he went there. That left-field wall was such a convenient target. Briggs Stadium [as Tiger Stadium was formerly known] was one of the only ballparks where you’d see a right-hander hit a ball down the line and it looks like it’s going to hook foul, and the wind, the way it was at Briggs Stadium, held it up and they would never go foul. They always stayed fair there.”

Colavito returned to Cleveland as part of a three-team trade before the 1965 season. Many experts believe that trade was almost as bad for the Indians as the Kuenn swap. To reacquire Colavito, Cleveland parted with left-hander Tommy John, who proceeded to amass 288 Major League victories, and outfielder Tommie Agee, who captured the 1966 AL Rookie of the Year Award with the White Sox before contributing heavily to the Mets’ surge to the 1969 World Series title.

Regardless, Colavito was overjoyed to return to where it all began for him. He responded by leading the league in RBIs (108) and walks (93) in ’65.

“I always felt this is my town,” Colavito said during a 2013 visit to Cleveland when the franchise honored him on his 80th birthday. “I love Cleveland. It’s my favorite town in the world. That’s the God’s honest truth. I’m not blowing smoke to anybody, because I don’t have to.”

Performing during an era in which everyday outfielders were expected to be multidimensional, Colavito left as much of an impression with his throwing as he did with his hitting. “He had a tremendous arm,” Downing said. “Rocky’s arm probably was among the top three or four in the American League.”

In fact, Colavito pitched 5 2/3 scoreless innings in a pair of legitimate relief appearances — not in lopsided games when position players take the mound, as they do now. He worked three innings for Cleveland in 1958 and had a 2 2/3-inning outing in 1968 with the Yankees.

After finishing his career with 374 homers, 1,159 RBIs and an .848 OPS, Colavito spent several years as an Indians coach and broadcaster. He maintained a powerful presence. Giants broadcaster Duane Kuiper, an Indians second baseman from 1974-81, recalled one Spring Training in Tucson, Ariz., when a truckers’ strike threatened to prevent transport of the ballclub’s equipment and other belongings back to Cleveland in time for Opening Day. Said Kuiper, “Rocky made one phone call. And we got our stuff.”

Kuiper related that the most important lessons Colavito provided had nothing to do with batting tips.

“The respect he had for all the people in the clubhouse, for the people who worked at the park, for coaches — that’s what I learned from him. Just how to be a pro,” Kuiper said. “He’s one of my all-time favorite coaches and, basically, one of my all-time favorite baseball people.”

Kuiper’s sentiment is widely shared. Mention Colavito in a gathering of Cleveland fans, and one of them is sure to blurt, “Don’t knock the Rock.”