Winner of the 2022 SABR Baseball Research Award
Before there was Joe DiMaggio, there was Tony Lazzeri. A decade before the "Yankee Clipper" began his legendary career in 1936, Lazzeri paved the way for the man who would become the patron saint of Italian American fans and players. He did so by forging his own Hall of Fame career as a key member of the Yankees' legendary Murderers' Row lineup between 1926 and 1937, in the process becoming the first major baseball star of Italian descent.
An unwitting pioneer who played his entire career while afflicted with epilepsy, Lazzeri was the first player to hit sixty home runs in organized baseball, one of the first middle infielders in the big leagues to hit with power, and the first Italian player with enough star power to attract a whole new generation of fans to the ballpark. As a twenty-two-year-old rookie for the New York Yankees, Lazzeri played alongside such legends as Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. He immediately emerged as a star, finishing second to Ruth in RBIs and third in home runs in the American League. Lawrence Baldassaro reveals Lazzeri to be one of the smartest, most talented, and most respected players of his time, the forgotten Yankee who helped the team win six American League pennants and five World Series titles.
Lawrence Baldassaro is a professor emeritus of Italian at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is the author of Beyond DiMaggio: Italian Americans in Baseball (Nebraska, 2011), Baseball Italian Style: Great Stories Told by Italian American Major Leaguers from Crosetti to Piazza, and The Ted Williams Reader.