Colavito always straight shooter

BERNVILLE, Pa. - The Rock, now 74, sits in a tree 28 feet above the ground with a bow and a carbon arrow, and a netted hat to keep out the bugs. Hey, he's a former Cleveland Indian, so he knows about bugs. He also knows about hunting. He has bagged more than 60 deer, and his east central Pennsylvania hunting lodge has eight stuffed on the living room wall, along with two towering elk, several bears, a couple of pheasants, and a panoramic view of the Appalachian Mountains.

He speaks in a whisper because a doe and her fawns are within target range.

"This is a white oak tree," he says. "This produces their most preferred acorn. It's sweeter. How do they know that? Did they ask the deer? Did they answer them?"

He giggles under the net.

"Don't move; I heard something. Don't point. Don't make eye contact. They can see movement. They'll see your eyes blink."

Rocky Colavito doesn't shoot.

The 1959 American League home run cochampion is going for the home run. He wants a 10-point buck looking for a mate, not Bambi with her babies nearby.

"I'd be reluctant to shoot mothers that produce bucks," he says.

Colavito's mind is still sharp, his arms still muscular, as they were when he was a six-time All-Star who became just the fifth player in AL history to post 11 consecutive 20-homer seasons. He had, as Ted Williams said, "a gun for an arm," and he became the first AL outfielder to play every game in a season without committing an error. When he retired in 1968, his 374 career home runs ranked behind only Jimmie Foxx (534) and Harmon Killebrew (396) among AL righthanded hitters.

But he'd rather talk about hunting.

All this from a guy that used to strike fear into pitchers by standing at the plate and pointing his bat directly at the pitcher during practice swings.

"I did that once against Hoyt Wilhelm and hit a home run, so I just kept doing it," he says.

So did thousands of kids who were Rocky Colavito fans in the '50s and '60s.

Days of thunder

"It was a big mistake," says Colavito. "I didn't want kids to say, 'He dropped out of school and made the big leagues.' "

His idol was Joe DiMaggio, but the Yankees weren't interested. He signed with the Indians and came up in 1955 as a 21-year-old.

He credits Williams with helping him find his stroke.

"I never saw him look bad at the plate," says Colavito. "Ever. He helped me. One time in Cleveland, he made a suggestion and I did what he said. I got a single and a homer to left-center, and his pitchers were really [ticked] off. He helped me immensely."

Colavito loved to come back and beat New York, but he didn't think Yankee Stadium was his field of dreams.

"New York was a tough ballpark for a righty," he says. "[Luis] Arroyo was pitching in relief. Eighth inning. A close game. We were down one. I'm looking for a screwball first pitch. I got it and hit the [heck] out of it to deep left-center, and Mickey [Mantle] caught it over his head at the 457 mark. I was running pretty near second. Here's Mickey with that big grin and his head bobbing up and down and he says, 'Hey, Rock, how'd you like to play in this field all your life?' It was funny but it wasn't funny."

At Fenway Park, Colavito loved the background but hated The Wall.

"I'd hit line-drive bullets and I'd get singles," he says.

But he became one of the most feared sluggers in the game, though he never played in a World Series.

Colavito believes he should be in the Hall of Fame, but he got only five votes from the 2007 Veterans Committee.

"That's kind of a sore spot with me," he says. "I see some players with lesser credentials, and that bothers me some. I told my wife and my son, 'If I die and they want to put me in, tell them to stick it 'cause it ain't gonna do me any good when I'm dead.'

"There was better players than me - they could run more - but I held my own. I was RBI king one year [1965]. I thought I contributed to my team, I never dogged any ball. I went something like 232 games without an error. But it's a popularity contest."

Rooting interest

He's got a beautiful house with a view of Blue Mountain, part of the Appalachian chain, and he drives a black Cadillac on the winding mountain roads as if he wants to meet his Maker. He's had open-heart surgery and survived colon cancer and he's happiest just sitting in a tree, watching the leaves change and the deer munch the clover he's planted. He says he'll watch the Cleveland-Boston American League Championship Series that starts tonight, but he may not watch every pitch. He's rooting for Cleveland but thinks the series is a tossup.

"I'm a little partial to Cleveland; it's a great city," he says. "It's a wonderful city. Boston has more stars, but Cleveland has some up-and-coming kids and they are hungry. I like [Grady] Sizemore. Both have good pitching. It's gonna be about the bullpen."

He also is a Terry Francona fan, because he played with the Red Sox manager's father, Tito.

"I know Terry very well," says Colavito. "I have movies of him in the pool as a baby with his mother, Birdie, in Tucson in 1959. His dad was a hell of a guy. [Terry] was always a pleasant baby. A good baby, not a whiner."

Colavito hates the steroid use in baseball and thinks Barry Bonds's career home run record should have an asterisk.

He also hates players styling after home runs.

"I hit a home run in Washington, D.C.," says Colavito, who has flat feet. "My way of running around was slower. The other team starts yelling from the dugout, 'You bush [expletive], run the freakin' bases.' And I thought about it and they were right, and I never did it again. The pitcher, he's trying to make a living, you're trying to make a living - don't show him up."

He also gets upset watching Manny be Manny.

"Manny [Ramírez] is a really good hitter, no doubt about it," says Colavito. "[But] I see him make a miscue in the field and I see a grin on his face. In our day, if you grinned, they might boot your [posterior] to the minor leagues. They wouldn't tolerate it and you might get disciplined by your peers."

The Curse

He once got so angry at a fan who dumped a beer on him in the outfield at Baltimore's Memorial Stadium that he challenged the man "to show some guts" and fight him after the game. He smashed four consecutive home runs that day. Another time, he climbed into the stands to save his wife from a drunken fan, and he had a long-running feud with a Detroit sportswriter and well-documented contractual problems with Indians general manager Frank Lane.

So when a reporter brings up "The Curse of Rocky Colavito," the Rock smiles.

This is the title of a 1994 book by Terry Pluto, a former Akron Beacon Journal columnist. Pluto says that when the Indians traded their league-leading home run hitter, Colavito, for Detroit's Harvey Kuenn, the batting titlist in 1959, that triggered a curse under which the hapless Indians never got closer than 11 games of first place from 1960-93 and haven't won a World Series since 1948.

A Lake Erie version of the Curse of the Bambino.

But Colavito says the curse is a misconception.

"I never put the evil eye on 'em," he says. "It's not like in the old country in Italy where one of those old grandmothers drops oil into water and if it doesn't spread, the curse is on. No. Anyway, I never put a curse on the Indians."

But there was bad blood between Lane and Colavito over the slugger's salary. Colavito says he wanted a $3,000 raise to $15,000 in 1957, and Lane refused. Colavito worked a second job on a mushroom farm.

"[Lane] said, 'If you have a good year, you won't have to call me. I'll call you,' " recalls Colavito. "When I hit my 35th home run, a grand slam which gave me 102 RBIs, this SOB had yet to call me."

Colavito went to Lane.

"I want my money you promised me," he said.

Lane replied, "I don't owe you no money."

Colavito responded, "You're a liar."

That led to more contract problems and the 1960 blockbuster trade for Kuenn after Colavito slugged 42 home runs and tied Killebrew for the league lead. The deal was consummated during a spring training game.

Lane rubbed salt in the wound by telling reporters, "What's all the fuss about? All I did was trade hamburger for steak."

Almost a half-century later, Colavito says, "Am I vindictive? I wasn't happy about getting traded from Cleveland. My name is pretty synonymous with Cleveland, but I did play with Detroit and had some pretty good seasons."

In 1961, Colavito had a monster year for the Tigers with 45 homers, 140 RBIs, and 129 runs. Cleveland fans were angry. Kuenn, a singles hitter, batted .308 in 1960 and was unceremoniously shipped to San Francisco.

But Colavito wasn't the baseball god in Detroit, which had Al Kaline.

A falling out

"I was always amiable unless somebody took potshots at me," says Colavito. "He had a column for me - 'runs not batted in' - only when we were on the road 'cause he was afraid I would strangle him."

But Colavito loved kids. "I told 'em to line up, stay in line, and I'd sign every single one of 'em," he says. "I'd tell my wife to figure another hour for signing autographs."

Colavito was traded to Kansas City after the '63 season and was brought back to Cleveland in a three-way deal also involving the White Sox in 1965.

That was more curse material.

The Indians gave up Tommy John, who would win 288 games, and Tommie Agee, who wound up as the Rookie of the Year in 1966 for the White Sox and the center fielder for the Miracle Mets of 1969.

But Colavito's love affair with Indians fans continued.

"In fact," he says, "when I came back in '65, the attendance went from 500,000 to 1.2 million."

The Rock played for six teams, finishing with the Yankees in 1968, even recording a win after volunteering to pitch in relief. He batted .266 in a 1,841-game career, with 1,159 RBIs, 971 runs, 1,730 hits, 283 doubles, 21 triples, and no curses.

The Indians have fared better, beginning in the '90s, but haven't won it all since Bob Feller led them to the promised land in 1948.

They won the pennant in 1995 and were defeated by the underdog Atlanta Braves in the World Series. In 1997, they were two outs from winning the World Series, but reliever Jose Mesa couldn't hold a 2-1 lead and they lost Game 7 in 11 innings to the Florida Marlins.

In 1999, they had a 2-0 lead over the Red Sox in the best-of-five Division Series and lost three in a row.

Pluto blames the curse for Sam McDowell's alcoholism, Tony Horton's mental illness, and bad trades in which the Indians gave up Mudcat Grant and Rick Sutcliffe.

Colavito dismisses the whole thing as baloney.

And as the first pitch is thrown tonight, it will be twilight and Colavito will probably be up in a tree, until it's near pitch black.

Nobody to bother him. There's a handwritten sign on his stand that says, "If you get caught up here, pray."

Coming down in the darkness, Colavito is asked one more time about the curse.

"I never put a curse on anybody," he says.