So on December 23rd I was hunting around the internet for random things to write about, and for some reason the “Lee Mazzilli” news-tracker went and found this piece from the Baltimore Sun. It ran back in 2003, but some compuglitch made it show up again as “new” on 12/23/08. I’ve been sitting on it since, but with games coming back there’s no reason to keep it for a rainy day. Here ya go…
He grew up in Brooklyn, played stickball in the street and wore tight pants during the disco era, like John Travolta’s character in Saturday Night Fever.
His father is a former professional boxer who still lives in the 3 1/2 -room apartment where Mazzilli was raised in Sheepshead Bay, a neighborhood near Coney Island.
Once referred to as “The Italian Stallion” by tabloid headline writers, Mazzilli co-starred with an actress who now appears in The Sopranos when he performed in an off-Broadway theater production in the early 1990s.
“Lee had that New York edge about him, and he comes by it naturally,” said Joe Malone, Mazzilli’s baseball coach at Lincoln High School in 1972 and 1973.
Yet you should think twice before tagging him with the simplistic “brash New Yorker” label.
“That’s not me,” Mazzilli said last week, “and anyone who knows me knows that’s not me. What’s that old saying: ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover.'”
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I’ve coached a lot of kids over the years, and no one was more unassuming and respectful,” said Sal Cappucci, a Brooklyn teacher who managed Mazzilli for four years on a top club team representing the Gravesend Youth Center. “Lee is anything but a wise guy. His father brought him up right.”
Mazzilli’s grandfather had immigrated from Bari, Italy, and worked in the piano business, a trade he passed on to his son, Libero, who was a piano tuner and a professional welterweight. Libero and his wife had three children – Lee has an older brother and sister – and encouraged them all to skate.
“Skating was something I had always done,” the elder Mazzilli said last week.
Lee Mazzilli was a boy wonder, his strong legs and tenacity taking him far. Competing for the Prospect Park and Yonkers skating clubs, he shared the long track national championship at age 11 and then won outright titles at 13 and 15.
In short track skating, he won or shared the national title every year from 1968 to 1971.
When he shared the short track title in 1970, a younger division winner was 11-year-old Eric Heiden, destined to become America’s greatest speed skater.
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The Mets selected him with their first-round pick in the 1973 draft, making him the 14th player taken overall. The franchise later drafted other New York-area players such as Bodie, John Pacella and Neil Allen.
“We became a kind of ‘Rat Pack,'” said Bodie, a Brooklyn native. “We hung out together in the offseason, went to the gym, went out at night. We had an affinity.”
Mazzilli became their resident celebrity. He broke in with the Mets in 1976, and the organization, desperate for attention, labeled him a future superstar.
“He was a good-looking center fielder, a local kid, and they made him a teen-age idol,” Bodie said. “We’d buy new pants and take ’em to the tailor and get ’em cut skin tight.”
Mazzilli found the attention unsettling. “That [future superstar] tag was something that was put upon me rather than my choice,” he said.
The pressure was intense. He responded well at first. In 1979, he batted .303 with 15 homers and played in the All-Star Game, where he hit a home run off Jim Kern and drew a bases-loaded walk from Ron Guidry to force in what became the winning run.
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But his production and playing time dwindled as a new generation supplanted him. Traded in 1982, he played for the Rangers, Yankees and Pirates before returning to the Mets, with whom he won a World Series ring in 1986. A career .259 hitter over 14 seasons, he finished up with the Blue Jays in 1989.
His transition to life after baseball was jarring.
“That was probably the hardest thing I’ve had to deal with,” he said. “Your whole life has revolved around one thing, playing the game. Then, all of sudden, it’s not there. It’s 4 o’clock and you’re home barbecuing when you think you should be going to the park.”
Lee Mazzilli by the numbers
- Career batting average: .259
- All-Star sppearances: 1
- Years as a player: 14
- Winning percentage as minor league manager:.527
- Years as a Yankees coach: 4
www.metspolice.com
