Too Small for the Majors: Phil Rizzuto’s 1936 Richmond Hill High School Report Cards

Long before he was the Scooter, Phil Rizzuto was a student at Richmond Hill High School in Queens, signing his own report cards “Philip Rizzuto” and bringing them home to his parents for their signatures. He was only 5-foot-6 but played baseball and football at the school, and it was his size that almost kept him out of the game. While still in high school, he tried out for the Brooklyn Dodgers and was turned away by manager Casey Stengel because of how small he was, and Stengel famously told him to go get a shoeshine box. The Giants weren’t interested either. Two original 1936 report cards, signed by Rizzuto and his parents, capture him at exactly this stage of his life: a talented teenager with a dream and a lot of people telling him he’d never make it.

The Yankees saw something different. He signed with them in 1937 and was sent to their Class D team in Bassett, Virginia, and he made his big league debut on April 14, 1941, five years after these cards were issued. He hit .307 and helped the Yankees to the 1941 World Championship, and he went on to win the 1950 AL MVP, play on seven World Series winners, and enter the Hall of Fame in 1994. The Yankees retired his number 10 in 1985, and he became just as beloved as a broadcaster. Documents from a famous player’s school days are rare, and these show the boy who was told he was too small, in his own signature, just before the Yankees changed his life.