Rocky Colavito, the wildly popular and powerful slugger for the Detroit Tigers in the early 1960s, died on Tuesday at age 91 in Bernville, Pennsylvania, after a long illness.

During his four years with the Tigers as the cleanup hitter, Colavito slugged 139 home runs and knocked in 430 runs, averaging 35 homers and 107 RBIs a season.

In 1961, the best year of his 14-year career, Colavito belted 45 homers and drove in 140 runs.

The Tigers that season, loaded with Colavito, Norm Cash, (that season’s batting champ at .361), Al Kaline and a solid pitching staff (led by Jim Bunning and Frank Lary), battled the New York Yankees for the pennant all year until the Bronx Bombers pulled away in early September.

Colavito arrived in Detroit just two days before the start of the 1960 season in one of baseball’s most noted and shocking trades, as the Tigers dealt 1959 batting champ (and fan favorite) Harvey Kuenn to Cleveland for Colavito, who had tied for the 1959 home run title after hitting four consecutive homers in Baltimore and gracing the cover of Time magazine.

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The trade of hitting stars was a stunner for all involved, especially Colavito, as he recounted in 2020:

“We were playing in Memphis for our last exhibition game and I was standing on first base when Joe Gordon (manager) walked out of the dugout and told me, ‘Rocky, that is the last time you’ll bat for Cleveland. You’ve been traded to Detroit for Harvey Kuenn.’ He said ‘good luck’ and I said ‘same to you’ and that’s all I ever said to him. I was taken out of the game, and I told my teammates who were shocked and disappointed like me. I had to fly that night with my now ex-teammates to Cleveland for the opener with my new team, which was a little awkward.

‘To this day I don’t understand it, nor do the Cleveland fans who still send me letters about it. ”

After one year with Cleveland, Kuenn was traded to the San Francisco Giants. He finished his career with that franchise in 1966 with a .303 lifetime batting average, but that was far from matching the production of Rocco Domenico Colavito.

A fan favorite in Detroit

It didn’t take long for Detroit fans to appreciate the slugger, who was born in the Bronx in New York on Aug. 10, 1933 and would go on to become the biggest home run threat for the organization since Hank Greenberg two decades earlier.

Youngsters on sandlots throughout metro Detroit routinely imitated Colavito’s on-deck and batter’s box rituals.

The slugger would hold his bat with both hands over his head and pull it down behind his back. Stepping into the batter’s box, he pulled up his flannel sleeves to help free his shoulders, and often did the sign of the cross before slowly pointing his bat at the pitcher three times.

“My on-deck routine was simply a stretching exercise that helped release tension, and my pointing the bat was really a timing device where I was kind of saying ‘Put the pitch right there,’ because as a power hitter, you are looking for a ball to drive,” Colavito said in a 2010 interview. “I can’t tell you how many times people have come up to me and said that when they were kids they would imitate me.”

Although he sometimes displayed a fiery temper while arguing with umpires, and was ejected after angrily jumping into the Yankee Stadium stands behind the Tigers’ dugout in 1961 in response to a fan harassing his wife and father, Colavito is also remembered by his thoughtfulness towards admiring fans and teammates.   

When a ballgame was over, win or lose, Colavito was famous for signing autographs for fans.

“As a kid I would try to get autographs outside of Yankee Stadium and I remembered not only how bad I felt when a player wouldn’t sign for me, but also the time I didn’t want to wash my hair after Charlie Keller patted me on the head,” he said. “I would tell the kids to line up in a straight line, not to take cuts or push, say ‘please and thank you’ and then I would sign for all of them.” 

A well-traveled slugger

Colavito’s time in Detroit lasted just four seasons, as he was traded after the 1963 season.

To the shock of Tigers fans, Detroit sent Colavito, pitcher Bob Anderson and $50,000 to the Kansas City Athletics for infielder Jerry Lumpe and pitchers Dave Wickersham and Ed Rakow.

The Tigers claimed the trade was made because rookie Willie Horton was ready to take over in left field. Yet a major factor was that the 29-year-old and Jim Campbell, in his first year as Detroit’s general manager, had a bitter contract dispute that lasted into 1963’s spring training.

Following one year with the A’s, for whom he hit 34 homers with 102 RBIs, Colavito was traded to Cleveland, the city that had adopted him and the place he never wanted to leave.

In 1965, his first year back in Cleveland, Colavito led the Amercian League in games played (162), RBIs (108) and walks (93) and became the first outfielder in American League history to finish a season with a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage. Meanwhile, attendance at Municipal Stadium increased by nearly 300,000 fans.

“Our collective hearts ache at the passing of Rocky,” Cleveland VP Bob DiBiasio said in a release. “Rocky was a generational hero, one of the most popular players in franchise history. … We send our most sincere condolences to the entire Colavito family, as well as his many teammates and other organizations impacted by his passing.”

In July 1967, Colavito was traded to the Chicago White Sox before wrapping up his career in 1968 with the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees. He finished his MLB career with a .266 batting average, 374 home runs and 1,159 RBIs. In addition to nine All-Star nods — four with the Tigers (two apiece in 1961-62), one with the A’s and four with Cleveland — he had four top-10 finishes in AL MVP voting (including an eighth-place finish in ’61 with the Tigers) and a second-place finish in AL Rookie of the Year voting in 1956.

His time in the field

Colavito had a very strong arm and originally wanted to pitch and play outfield.

His last hurrah occurred on Aug. 25, 1968, when he took the mound in relief during the first game of a doubleheader against the Tigers at Yankee Stadium, nearly 10 years to the day when he pitched against Detroit in his only other mound appearance.

Colavito pitched 2⅓ innings of one-hit ball while becoming the last non-pitcher to earn a win on the mound until Colorado’s Brent Mayne matched the feat in 2000. Playing right field in the nightcap, Colavito slammed a home run off Mickey Lolich to help the Yankees sweep the weekend series. (For his MLB career, Colavito pitched 5⅔ innings, allowing no earned runs and one hit.)

At the time of his retirement, Colavito’s 371 AL homers placed him third on the AL’s all-time list among right-handed hitters, behind Jimmie Foxx and Harmon Killebrew. From 1956-66, he was one of the game’s most consistent power hitters, as he became the fifth player with an 11-year span featuring at least 20 homers in every season. During that run, he averaged 32 homers and 99 RBIs a year.

Following his playing career, Colavito served as a color analyst on Cleveland TV broadcasts, served as a coach with Cleveland and the Kansas City Royals, operated a mushroom farm and was a sales executive for a temporary staffing company. In retirement, he particularly enjoyed hunting at his 90-acre deer camp near his home.

Horton, a Detroit native who eventually replaced him in left field, fondly recalled his first encounter with Colavito.

“When I was in junior high, a buddy and me were stopped by security at Briggs Stadium after we tried to sneak into the ballpark,” Horton said. “Rocky had just walked off Cleveland’s bus and saw what happened. He took us over to the Tigers’ clubhouse manager, John Hand, and asked him if he would give us a job in the locker room and sure enough, we got it. From that day on, Rocky was my hero. I would imitate his batting stance in a mirror, pointing my bat like he did, trying to get his stroke. When I joined the Tigers, he took me under his wing and helped me become a major leaguer. He also told me that I would one day take over from him in left field. I will never forget what he did for me.”

Another teammate had a warm memory of Colavito on a cold night in Baltimore.

After right-hander Denny McLain was called up to the Tigers in September 1963, Colavito gave him his warmup jacket. As McLain remembered, Colavito said, “You need this more than me.”

Even though Horton and McLain were only teammates with Colavito for just one month in 1963, both traveled to Cleveland in 2021 and joined hundreds of fans to be with him on his 88th birthday when a statue of Colavito was unveiled in the city’s Little Italy neighborhood.

When asked in the 2010 interview how he would like to be remembered, Colavito’s voice cracked.

“People might think I would say it would be hitting 45 homers with 140 RBIs in one season, or some BS like that, but I hope people will say that, ‘Rocky was a hell of a nice guy and a good human being.’ ”

Colavito is survived by his wife of 70 years, Carmen, sons Rocky Jr. and Stephen, daughter Marisa, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements are pending.