Follow-up To My Article On Frankie Crosetti! More Great Stuff From Frank Wanner!

Subscribe to Baseball History Comes Alive! to receive new posts automatically

 Frankie “Crow” Crosetti Photo Gallery
Click on any image below to see photos in full size and to start Photo Gallery:

Follow-up To My Article On Frankie “Crow” Crosetti!

More Great Stuff From Frank Wanner!

Many of you will remember my recent post in which I described the friendship one of our readers, Frank Wanner, developed with the famed Yankee shortstop, Frankie Crosetti, during Crosetti’s retirement years. Frank Wanner was kind enough to share with me a few more interesting reminiscences about his relationship with Frankie Crosetti.

Frank mentioned that at one point in his relationship with Crosetti, he took his son Erik (who developed into quite a ball player himself, having played college and semi-pro ball, and is now a youth baseball coach) to meet Frank Crosetti.  Crow was good enough to present to Erik an autographed photo of himself from his career as a player. He even personalized it for Erik. I’m sure that’s something Erik will always treasure.  

Frank Wanner also told me that Crosetti’s favorite manager was Joe McCarthy “hands down.” He couldn’t say enough good things about him. He also mentioned that Crosetti was not particularly fond of Casey Stengel, adding:

“He didn’t say why, but it might have to do with [Mantle’s] drinking. I told him of a story I had heard of Stengel mentioning he didn’t want to stop Mantle’s drinking as ‘it might hurt his hitting.’ That set him off against Stengel. He felt if he knew Mickey had a problem he should have helped him. But then I knew Stengel was also a hard drinker, both as a player and a manager, so I said nothing.”

Shop MLB.com. The Official Online Shop of Major League Baseball.

Wanner commented that Crosetti didn’t like George Steinbrenner either, but never said exactly why. He quoted Crosetti as saying: “I’ll never go to an Old Timers’ Yankee Reunion while Steinbrenner is owner.”

I mentioned to Wanner that the quote from Crosetti sounded a lot like what Yogi Berra had said about Steinbrenner: “I’ll never go back to Yankee Stadium as long as ‘that guy’ is around.” So I was wondering if it had something to do with the feud between Yogi and Steinbrenner which came about as a result of the way Yogi was “canned.” Yogi always thought Steinbrenner should have been man enough to deliver the “pink slip’ himself, instead of sending his GM around to do the job. Wanner wasn’t sure, but thought it could be a possibility; and he reiterated that Crow was very definite about his negative feelings toward Steinbrenner.

Frank Wanner also commented that one possible explanation for the fact he and Frank Crosetti hit it off so well was because they both had the same first name:

“One day we were both at Billy Hebert Field for some baseball function, and one of my ex-ball players who was not shy, spotted me from behind and yelled ‘Hey Frankie!’ We both turned around simultaneously, and when I saw who it was, said to Crow, ’This one’s for me, Frank.’ ”

Thanks again to Frank Wanner for sharing more information about his friendship with Frankie Crosetti!

Gary Livacari 

“Friend” me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gary.livacari.9

Visit Our Web page: “Baseball History Comes Alive!” now with over 228K hits!:
http://wp.me/P7a04E-2he

Photo Credits: All from Google search

Check out my two books, both now available on Amazon in e-book and paperback:  “Paul Pryor in His Own Words: The Life and TImes of a 20-Year Major League Umpire”and “Memorable World Series Moments.” All profits go to the Illinois Veterans Foundation