Rocky Colavito

Rocky Colavito
Colavito in 1959.
Right fielder / Left fielder
Born: (1933-08-10) August 10, 1933 (age 83) New York City, New York
Batted: Right Threw: Right
MLB debut
September 10, 1955, for the Cleveland Indians
Last MLB appearance
September 28, 1968, for the New York Yankees
MLB statistics
Batting average	.266
Home runs	374
Runs batted in	1,159
Teams
Cleveland Indians (1955–1959) Detroit Tigers (1960–1963) Kansas City Athletics (1964) Cleveland Indians (1965–1967) Chicago White Sox (1967) Los Angeles Dodgers (1968) New York Yankees (1968)
Career highlights and awards
9× All-Star (1959, 1959², 1961–1962², 1964–1966) AL home run leader (1959) AL RBI leader (1965) Hit 4 home runs in one game on June 10, 1959

Rocco Domenico "Rocky" Colavito, Jr. (born August 10, 1933) is a former right fielder in Major League Baseball best known for his years with the Cleveland Indians. Colavito was the fifth player in American League history to have eleven consecutive 20-home run seasons (1956–66), and he exceeded 40 home runs three times and 100 runs batted in six times during that span. He also led the AL in home runs, RBI and slugging average once each. Hitting all but three of his 374 career home runs in the AL, he ranked behind only Jimmie Foxx (524) and Harmon Killebrew (then at 397) among the league's right-handed hitters when he retired.

In 1965, playing every game, Colavito became the first outfielder in AL history to complete a season with a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage. His 1272 games in right field ranked eighth in American League history at the end of his career. Colavito currently lives in Berks County, Pennsylvania.

Colavito grew up in The Bronx as a devoted fan of the New York Yankees, particularly Joe DiMaggio. By age nine he was playing semipro baseball, and he dropped out of school at age 16 to pursue a baseball career. Major League rules called for a player to wait until his school class graduated before signing, and only a special appeal allowed him to go pro after a one-year wait. The Yankees expressed little interest in him, and the Philadelphia Athletics had to bow out due to financial problems; the Cleveland Indians finally signed him in 1950, with two-thirds of his signing bonus deferred until he progressed in their system. He spent most of the next six years working his way up. With the Indianapolis Indians in 1954, Colavito would hit 38 home runs and accumulate 116 RBIs.