{"id":2275,"date":"2014-05-09T09:28:12","date_gmt":"2014-05-09T09:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wp_oliver\/2014\/05\/09\/4\/"},"modified":"2021-02-23T11:47:44","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T11:47:44","slug":"vito-giordano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mojobro.com\/bigleaguecards\/vito-giordano\/","title":{"rendered":"In Memoriam: Vito Giordano"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you ever came to a Friday night trade night at Big League, there\u2019s no doubt you encountered Vito Giordano. Always full of excitement and eager to buy cards of his favorite player, Vito would greet any newcomer with the same line in his thick Brooklynese accent: \u201cYou got any Jeter cards?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sadly, we learned on Monday that Vito passed away at the age of 83.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s amazing how much you can learn about a person just through interactions at a baseball card shop. You could find out a lot about Vito pretty quickly when you first met him. In addition to telling you that his favorite player was Derek Jeter, you\u2019d also learn that he had a dog named Jeter and a vanity \u201cJETER SS\u201d license plate. He\u2019d also probably tell you that he had the chance to get Derek Jeter\u2019s signature on what he called \u201cmy bat\u201d back in 1992 for $8, but turned it down because he was an unproven prospect. For the uninitiated, Vito\u2019s bat was a gigantic oversized baseball bat, painted white, upon which he obtained hundreds of signatures from baseball players that spanned his lifespan. If you ever mentioned a player Vito had the fortune of meeting, he\u2019d chime in with, \u201cI have him on my bat!\u201d Then he\u2019d recall the glory days of baseball card shows, when autographs for stars like Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays cost just $20 a pop and there was no line to get them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Vito getting Aaron Boone to sign his bat in Spring Training. Years later, Boone would become the manager of Vito\u2019s beloved Yankees.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It wasn\u2019t too long after I met Vito that he told me he was from Brooklyn. \u201cNo!\u201d I exclaimed, feigning shock at having no idea of his origins despite his heavily-accented speech. I learned he lived in Sheepshead Bay, a dozen or so blocks from my grandmother who lived on Avenue J around the same time. When he\u2019d talk about Brooklyn, Vito\u2019s eyes would light up as the memories of his childhood came flooding back. \u201cI used to play ball with Sandy Koufax,\u201d or \u201cWe\u2019d see Phil Rizzuto around all the time!\u201d were some of his favorite ways to start stories.<\/p>\n

Vito also used to love to talk about watching the Dodgers and Giants and, of course, his beloved Yankees as a kid. He made sure you knew that if Mickey Mantle had played anywhere besides Yankee Stadium, he would have hit 700 home runs. He\u2019d talk about times that he and his friends would get autographs through the fence or sneak peeks at the game without paying to go in. But his passion for the Yankees didn\u2019t end with his childhood or even when Derek Jeter retired; he followed the Yankees religiously, complaining about how often Gary Sanchez strikes out and raving about his preference for Gio Urshela\u2019s defense over Miguel Andujar\u2019s bat. He\u2019d also watch the \u201clocal\u201d team, the Tampa Bay Rays, and would often ask if anyone had watched the game the night before in order to discuss something he\u2019d seen, or a strategy that he didn\u2019t care for, or to lament that the Yankees didn\u2019t have a player the Rays had.<\/p>\n

His stories spanned not just baseball, but his own life, too. We would hear about the time Denny McLain showed him a curse-word-filled autograph about Mickey Mantle or about Hank Bauer\u2019s feelings about America\u2019s adversaries in World War II, sure. We\u2019d also hear about how he loved to visit the old Ted Williams Museum before it got moved to the Tampa Bay Rays stadium, and how he and his son had an inscribed brick there but he never found out what they did with the bricks when they moved the museum. He\u2019d tell us the story of how he and his friends went to Coney Island and they all got tattoos (his said \u201cWilliam,\u201d his middle name), or about the time Katharine Hepburn asked him to put some water in her glass. (\u201cOh, boy!\u201d she would exclaim in the story. \u201cCould you fill my water glass?\u201d Vito would reply, \u201cRight away, Mrs. Hepburn,\u201d then realize the cup was filled with vodka, return the cup to her, and say \u201cPlease, Mrs. Hepburn, don\u2019t hurt the fish!\u201d) If you were planning on visiting New York City, Vito always had one piece of advice: \u201cDo you like Italian food? Go to Carmine\u2019s!\u201d He also made sure we knew whenever Albertsons had a sale on shrimp \u2014 and how disappointed he was that the Albertsons location he frequented became a Safeway and, later, another Publix.<\/p>\n

His jokes became so overused that the humor in them was not in the punchline but rather in the joy Vito had when saying them. \u201cPizza man is here!\u201d he would exclaim when someone walked through the door with a large box of baseball cards. If that person was holding several things with both hands, he\u2019d ask him, \u201cCan you hold this for me?\u201d without trying to give him anything to hold. \u201cMy doctor always tells me, don\u2019t eat nothin\u2019 that tastes good!\u201d he\u2019d say to you while eating a small slice of pizza or a Little Debbie snack cake, careful not to overindulge so as to still be able to enjoy his wife\u2019s cooking, which he always raved about. When paying for a card he bought, Vito would ask, \u201cDo you have change?\u201d If you didn\u2019t, he\u2019d hit you with his classic reply: \u201cYou don\u2019t have change of underwear?\u201d The joke never made a whole lot of sense, but that was sort of the beauty of it, seeing an octogenarian get such a kick out of a simple one-liner we\u2019d all heard many times before. I\u2019d love to hear him crack that joke and see his smile afterwards one more time.<\/p>\n

Vito will be sorely missed by everyone who knew him. Big League won\u2019t be the same without his booming voice, thick head of hair, and gregarious personality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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