LOVERRO: Nationals’ Rizzo joins DiMaggio, Marciano, Lombardi in Italian-American Sports Hall of Fame

Washington Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo grew up in Chicago hearing stories from his father, the legendary scout Phil Rizzo, about Italian sports icons like Joe DiMaggio and Rocky Marciano.

Now the younger Rizzo will take his place alongside DiMaggio, Marciano and other greats from his ethnic heritage when he is inducted Friday night into the Italian-American Sports Hall of Fame in his Chicago hometown.

“This would be just his kind of event,” Mike Rizzo said, speaking of his father, who passed away in 2020 at the age of 90. “He would be so proud of me making it with the big boys of his generation.

“It’s a real honor,” Rizzo said. “My family and my friends will be there. That’s pretty cool.”

The Italian-American Sports Hall of Fame was founded in 1978 by George Randazzo as a nonprofit educational institution. The first class included such greats as the DiMaggio brothers, Joe and Dom, jockey Eddie Arcaro and NFL great Gino Marchetti. Mrs. Vince Lombardi also accepted the posthumous induction of her late husband.

On its website, the Hall says its mission is to “promote the history and heritage of Italian-Americans in sports through a number of causes that are important to our organization and its founders.”

In 1988, the Hall of Fame moved from its original headquarters in Elmwood Park to Arlington Heights. Ten years later, the Hall received a boost with fundraising efforts by Phoenix Suns Chairman/CEO Jerry Colangelo, a 1994 Inductee and Chicago Heights native, who headed a new Hall of Fame building project in Chicago’s Little Italy – not far from where Phil Rizzo grew up.

“We would often go back and visit his old neighborhood,” Mike Rizzo said. “His heritage and where he came from was important to him. My father was full Italian — Sicilian — and my mother was half Italian, Calabrese. He honored it and respected it greatly. These kinds of things were important to him and his culture.”

That Italian heritage connected the Rizzos to one of Chicago’s legendary sports heroes — Cubs third baseman Ron Santo, who grew up in the Seattle neighborhood known as “Garlic Gulch.”

“He was really into the Italian heritage thing, and … he had a huge following in [Chicago’s] Little Italy,” Rizzo said.

Now Rizzo will join Santo, Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Tony LaRussa and other Italian-Americans who had careers in baseball worth honoring. There are more than 270 inductees in the Hall, with a display of sports memorabilia that includes Mario Andretti’s Indianapolis 500 race car, Marciano’s heavyweight championship belt and the last coat worn by Lombardi when he was coaching the Green Bay Packers.

Maybe they could put one of Rizzo’s cigars on display.

Rizzo has had one of those careers worth honoring. He won a World Series championship with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001 when he was director of scouting. He was named Executive of the Year by the publication Baseball America in 2012 and 2019. He was also given that honor in 2019 by the Boston chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America. He was also named the baseball executive of the year by the Italian-American Baseball Foundation.

He is trying to build on that resume by putting together another Nationals championship contender after the team’s seven-year run of winning from 2012 to 2019, culminating with a World Series championship. His team, full of prospects and spare parts with a low payroll, managed to jump 16 wins last year, from 55 in 2022 to 71. In September, Rizzo, 62, who has been the general manager since 2009, was given a multi-year contract extension by the Lerner family, owners of the Nationals.

He’s done a few things. But he is especially proud of this.

“This is right up there with one of the great honors of my life,” Rizzo said.

You can hear Thom Loverro on The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.