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Colavito Traded Back to Cleveland

Jan. 20, 1965 - It isn’t enough just to play the game — not for Rocco Domenico Colavito (pictured in 1959). “I must play where I am appreciated,” he says.

Like the night of May 11, 1961, in Yankee Stadium. Colavito vaulted into the lower boxes to get his hands on an unruly drunk. Mayhem isn’t a game Rocky gets paid to play, but this was a case when he knew he would be appreciated. His wife and 60-year-old father were being jostled by the drunk.

Colavito, who has been called “Rocky” for all of his 31 years, and who has been one of the American League’s top sluggers for the past nine years, will play in 1965 where he is appreciated.

Rocky was sent home from Kansas City today — home to Cleveland, where he labored from 1956 through 1959, as part of a three-club, round-robin trade. Cleveland gave up catcher John Romano, pitcher Tommy John, and outfielder Tommie Agee to the White Sox. The Sox then sent outfielders Jim Landis and Mike Hershberger and a starting pitcher to be named later to Kansas City and catcher Camilo Carreon to the Indians.

“We’ve been trying to get Colavito for a long time,” said Gabe Paul, general manager of the Indians. “And when you finally get the chance to get him, you don’t muff it. He’ll help the club. He batted in more than 100 runs in five of his last seven seasons. It’s the return of a local favorite.”

Last year, a last-minute surge at the gate at Cleveland Municipal Stadium was instrumental in at least postponing a move by the Indians to another city — probably Seattle. But the club still lost money, Paul said, and attendance will have to increase this year to keep the stockholders from transferring the franchise. The acquisition of Colavito could do this.

Rocky is happy to be going back to Cleveland. He said so tonight from his home in Temple, Pa.

“Cleveland is like home to me,” said the man who grew up in the Bronx. “I was raised in the Cleveland system. Kansas City was good to me and, in a way, we’ll miss the good people there, but Cleveland? You might say that’s where my heart is.”

There are only two men left on the Indians who were in Cleveland with Colavito: coach George Strickland and pitcher Gary Bell.

“But I know the organization and the fans and the ballpark,” Rocky said. “It’s going home. I’ll see my old roomie Herb Score, who works on television now. I’m no stranger. I don’t know what kind of a welcome I’ll get, but I know I’ll be thankful for everything.”



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