Frank Crosetti Interview (1998)

by Joelle Steele

I grew up hearing about my cousin, baseball legend, Frank “the Crow” Crosetti. My paternal grandmother's roots were in Varni and Bogli Italy. So when my father went to Italy in 1976, he visited the tiny village of Varni in the Trebbia Valley on the slopes of Mount Carmo in the Ligurian Apennines. It was then that he began a correspondence with Frank about trying to find out exactly how we were related to each other and to Joe J. Crosetti, Sr. of Watsonville, California. In 1998, I made a trip to Stockton, California, to interview Frank about family and career..

JS: Let’s start with our family ties. We share Crosetti ancestry in Varni, Italy.
FC: Yes, and I think you know more about that than I do. Your father sent me his research.
JS: He did some of the research in person, but most was done by a genealogist, Trafford Cole.
FC: Yes, he sent me information about the Crosettis, including our mutual cousin – my second cousin, I think – Joe  Crosetti. He was a farmer in Watsonville [California].
JS: Yes, his son took over the business about ten years ago. And we still haven’t found the common ancestor that we all share, according to your mother and my great-grandmother.
FC: That’s a family mystery. (laughs)
JS: Sounds that way. So let’s talk about your life.
FC: Okay. I was born in San Francisco, but my folks came to America from a small town called Varni in Italy [Genova, Liguria]. I was in Genoa in 1969, and I wanted to go to Varni, but couldn’t make it on account of snow.
JS: When did your father come to America, and what did he do here?
FC: He came to California in 1894 and was a farmer in Los Gatos. I think his family were all farmers in Italy. When I was a teenager, we moved up to the City [San Francisco] and he worked as a scavenger [garbageman], like your grandfather.
JS: Yes, and my father after him. And you own or owned quite a bit of real estate in San Francisco too, like my grandmother and great-grandfather.
FC: I did purchase a lot of old buildings in the City on the advice of a friend. It was during the depression and I tried to buy whatever was for sale.
JS: My great-grandmother Rosa and your mother Rachele were friends. They lived down the street from each other.
FC: Yeah, that was on Lombard. Your great-grandmother had twin girls, didn’t she?
JS: Yes. One of them was my grandmother. She said that your mother would visit, and she was always lamenting that “all Frankie wants to do is play baseball.”
FC: (laughs) That sounds about right. She was also worried about me a lot, afraid I’d get hurt. I was kind of sickly when I was a toddler so I guess that’s why. But in high school - Lowell High - I used to cut class to watch local baseball games. I once skipped school entirely for two weeks to go see the Seals play ball.
JS: So you knew that baseball was important to you early on.
FC: Oh yeah. When I was young, we played a game that was part baseball and part cricket. My brother whittled down a board for a bat and an old corn cob end was the ball. None of us had ever seen a professional ball game. Anyway, I dropped out of school when I was 16 and went to work in a produce market. And when I wasn’t working, I played baseball as often as I could until I was recruited to play semipro for the Butte Mining League in Butte [Montana]. But I still had to work during the day and play ball at night.
JS: What kind of work were you doing there?
FC: I mainly worked for the local power company. But I wasn’t there long. I came back to the City and was signed by the Seals. I was a so-so hitter and played third base with the Seals. They sold me to the Yankees a few years later, I think in ’32 [1930].
JS: And in the Yankees you played with a Seals teammate.
FC: Right, that was Joe DiMaggio. We roomed together in New York. He and Tony Lazzeri and I, we all came from San Francisco. Joe was a few years older than me and came from a long line of Sicilian fishermen. Tony had been around longer with the Yankees, and I looked up to him. He was like a big brother to me. All us guys were high school dropouts who just wanted to play pro ball.
JS: You shared the baseball spotlight with some other greats too.
FC: Oh, I did. Besides DiMaggio, there was Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth. The Babe was my hero and I couldn’t believe I was actually playing ball with him.
JS: You had a scare with your knee at some point, didn’t you?
FC: Yeah, that was maybe ’35, I think. I had injured my left knee on the field, and then later on the train, I tore the cartilage and needed knee surgery. That ended the season for me, but luckily not my career. The knee surgery turned out to help me with my batting stance.
JS: Speaking of the train, you didn’t like to fly?
FC: Right. Not at all. The Yankees were flying to games after the war, but I just didn’t want to do it, so I took the train. I mostly got over my fear of flying some years later.
JS: Now you also had some problems with your arm too, didn’t you?
FC: Yes, that was an ongoing problem for awhile back in about ’40 or maybe ‘42. My arm was sore, probably overworked. I was having problems hitting and catching. I did everything to strengthen it, even tried batting left handed during training. But I also got my hand injured shortly after that. One thing after another, ya know. That’s sports in general, I think.
JS: How did your career affect your draft status during the war?
FC: In the off-season, I worked in a shipyard here in Stockton. That gave me a deferment because I was a defense worker. And I still played semipro ball a couple times a week.
JS: So after the war, you were still with the Yankees. What positions did you play in your career?
FC: For most of my career, third base and shortstop.
JS: So how long did that career last?
FC: Well, I was a player-coach for a couple of years, then off the field in about ‘48 when I became the Yankees’ third base coach. I retired in ‘68.
JS: What did you do after that?
FC: I wanted to spend time with my family and friends, but I spent a couple years with the Twins and the Seattle Pilots. Eventually, I was here coaching St. Mary’s high school baseball, can you believe it?
JS: Yes, actually I can! And your wife, who I just met?
FC: Oh, Norma. She was born in California, but her family came from the same part of Italy as mine. We were married in 1938 in Manhattan, and we have two kids, Ellen and John.
JS: How did your nickname, “Frankie the Crow” come about?
FC: (laughs) From my loud voice yelling - “cawing” - from the outfield, so they say. Also came from the beginning of my last name. Cro, the Crow.
JS: I understand you’ve been a bit of a writer?
FC: Well, not much of a writer. But I wrote a pamphlet for new players joining the Yankees. Not too long before I retired, I also wrote a book for young kids called “Frank Crosetti’s Secrets of Baserunning and Infield Play” [Putnam, 1966].
JS: I'll be looking for a copy!

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