Damn Yankees by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Damn Yankees
Page 225
former teammate George Stirnweiss, who told him to refrain from "blasting" the Yankees because it might cost him a non-playing job later. Rizzuto said many times that following Stirnweiss' advice was probably the best move he ever made.
Rizzuto married Cora Anne Ellenborn on June 23, 1943. The two first met the previous year when Rizzuto substituted for Joe DiMaggio as a speaker at a Newark communion breakfast. "I fell in love so hard I didn't go home," Rizzuto recalled. He rented a nearby hotel room for a month to be near her. The Rizzutos moved to Hillside, New Jersey, in 1949, to an apartment in Monroe
Gardens. With later financial successes, they moved to a Tudor home on Westminster Avenue, where they lived for many years.
At a charity event in New Jersey in 1951, Rizzuto met a young
blind boy named Ed Lucas, who had lost his sight when he was struck by a baseball between the eyes on the same day as Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World."
Rizzuto took an interest in the boy and his school, St. Joseph's School for the Blind. Until his death, Rizzuto raised millions for St. Joseph's by donating profits from his commercials and books, and also by hosting the Annual Phil Rizzuto Celebrity Golf Classic and "Scooter" Awards. Rizzuto and Lucas remained friendly, and it was through the Yankee broadcaster's influence