Where are they now: Yankees broadcaster Bill White recalls bond with Phil Rizzuto
Former Yankees announcer and National League president Bill White on March 19, 2025. Credit: Newsday/Neil Best
WARRINGTON TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Bill White always has been a serious man.
In high school, he was president of his class and salutatorian. In college, he was pre-med, and to this day he regrets not becoming a doctor.
In professional baseball, he spoke up against the racist attitudes and policies of his era and emerged as a five-time All-Star and a World Series champion in 1964.
He was the major leagues’ first Black play-by-play announcer, and later the first Black league president.
He entitled his bluntly frank 2012 autobiography “Uppity.”
But there is one subject that without fail makes White smile, chuckle and often shake his head at the memories it invokes: Phil Rizzuto.
“We had a lot of fun — a lot of fun,” White said in an interview with Newsday at his assisted living facility in eastern Pennsylvania. “I miss Scooter.”
There are many old friends whom White misses. That comes with being 91.
But while his memory for dates and other details is not what it once was, he remains a fount of stories and living history.
White has been around long enough to have played for the Giants in New York and to count Stan Musial as a teammate and mentor.
For New York-area fans, though, he is recalled primarily for his 18 seasons, from 1971-88, as a television and radio announcer on Yankees games, for most of that time teamed with Frank Messer and all of it teamed with Rizzuto.
White’s biggest call of all was Bucky Dent’s seventh-inning home run against the Red Sox in an AL East tiebreaker in Boston on Oct. 2, 1978.
It went like this:
“Deep to left! Yastrzemski will not get it! It’s a home run! A three-run home run for Bucky Dent, and the Yankees now lead it by a score of 3-2 . . . The last guy on the ballclub you’d expect to hit a home run just hit one into the screen.”
The Yankees went on to win, 5-4, and eventually win the World Series.
“Bucky didn’t hit too many home runs,” White said, recalling the historic swat. “So that surprised a lot of people.” (Dent hit 40 homers in 5,025 big-league plate appearances.)
White, Rizzuto and Messer pioneered a style that now is common: byplay among the announcers, especially when the team is struggling or the score is lopsided.
“They probably didn’t like the way we got away from baseball,” White said. “But we made it fun. Especially when they were losing, we tried to talk about something else.”
Unlike everyone else in White’s life, Rizzuto simply called him “White.” Not “Bill.” Not “Mr. White.” Just “White.”
“It was, ‘Hey, White! Hey, White!’ ” White recalled, laughing. “A lot of guys who had played would have said, ‘Hey, Phil, call me Bill.’ But I liked it.”
Rizzuto was infamous for leaving games early to beat the traffic home to New Jersey.
“He got away with a lot,” White said, laughing again. “He would say, ‘I’ve got to go get a drink of water,’ and then he wouldn’t [come back]. He’d leave.”
White called Messer “an excellent broadcaster” who showed him the ropes along with Rizzuto, who had been calling Yankees games since he retired from playing in 1956 and would do so for 40 years.
White left the booth after the ’88 season. “I think [principal owner George Steinbrenner] needed a broadcaster who was more pro-Yankee, so I found something else to do,” White said.
That something was being president of the National League from 1989-94.
White largely dropped out of public view for years until his memoir came out, time he spent traveling the world with his longtime partner, Nancy McKee, who died in January, a loss that devastated him.
White has four living children, one of whom lives nearby. He said he still is in touch with some baseball friends but rarely watches games.
“I wasn’t interested in baseball in the first place,” he said. “I shouldn’t say it, but I made a mistake playing baseball, in my opinion, because I could still be helping people.”
He initially enrolled at Hiram College in Ohio, planning a career in medicine.
“I played baseball to make money to go to college,” he said. “Back then we needed minority doctors. Unfortunately, I started hitting a baseball.”
He used his platform as a sports celebrity to encourage later generations to pursue their own dreams.
“I hope I’ve helped a lot of kids realize they can do things, that they’re not handicapped by certain things that handicapped people years ago,” White said.
Dave Sims, the Yankees’ new radio voice, is 72, but he once was a young person of color inspired by White. Sims was growing up in Philadelphia when White got his start in local TV there.
Sims spent a day with White over the winter.
“I told him, ‘Hey, you’re one of the reasons why I’m sitting here; I looked up to you,’ ” Sims told Newsday. “It meant a lot to see him.”
White may not be a doctor, but he acknowledged things worked out well for him.
“The man upstairs has been good to me,” he said.
Nothing was better than those times in the booth with Rizzuto. White said that in a cutthroat business full of overinflated egos, “We never had that.”
White was on the veterans committee that voted the former Yankees shortstop into the Hall of Fame in 1994.
Messer died in 2001 and Rizzuto in 2007, shortly after one last visit from White.
“I loved Rizzuto,” he said. “We laughed all the time. You should have heard it between innings. ‘Hey, White, where you gonna eat?!’ ”
White smiled at the memory.
WARRINGTON TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Bill White always has been a serious man.
In high school, he was president of his class and salutatorian. In college, he was pre-med, and to this day he regrets not becoming a doctor.
In professional baseball, he spoke up against the racist attitudes and policies of his era and emerged as a five-time All-Star and a World Series champion in 1964.
He was the major leagues’ first Black play-by-play announcer, and later the first Black league president.
He entitled his bluntly frank 2012 autobiography “Uppity.”
But there is one subject that without fail makes White smile, chuckle and often shake his head at the memories it invokes: Phil Rizzuto.
“We had a lot of fun — a lot of fun,” White said in an interview with Newsday at his assisted living facility in eastern Pennsylvania. “I miss Scooter.”
There are many old friends whom White misses. That comes with being 91.
But while his memory for dates and other details is not what it once was, he remains a fount of stories and living history.
White has been around long enough to have played for the Giants in New York and to count Stan Musial as a teammate and mentor.
For New York-area fans, though, he is recalled primarily for his 18 seasons, from 1971-88, as a television and radio announcer on Yankees games, for most of that time teamed with Frank Messer and all of it teamed with Rizzuto.
White’s biggest call of all was Bucky Dent’s seventh-inning home run against the Red Sox in an AL East tiebreaker in Boston on Oct. 2, 1978.
It went like this:
“Deep to left! Yastrzemski will not get it! It’s a home run! A three-run home run for Bucky Dent, and the Yankees now lead it by a score of 3-2 . . . The last guy on the ballclub you’d expect to hit a home run just hit one into the screen.”
The Yankees went on to win, 5-4, and eventually win the World Series.
“Bucky didn’t hit too many home runs,” White said, recalling the historic swat. “So that surprised a lot of people.” (Dent hit 40 homers in 5,025 big-league plate appearances.)
White, Rizzuto and Messer pioneered a style that now is common: byplay among the announcers, especially when the team is struggling or the score is lopsided.
“They probably didn’t like the way we got away from baseball,” White said. “But we made it fun. Especially when they were losing, we tried to talk about something else.”
Unlike everyone else in White’s life, Rizzuto simply called him “White.” Not “Bill.” Not “Mr. White.” Just “White.”
“It was, ‘Hey, White! Hey, White!’ ” White recalled, laughing. “A lot of guys who had played would have said, ‘Hey, Phil, call me Bill.’ But I liked it.”
Rizzuto was infamous for leaving games early to beat the traffic home to New Jersey. Bill White batted .286 in 13 MLB seasons, including eight with the Cardinals. Credit: AP
“He got away with a lot,” White said, laughing again. “He would say, ‘I’ve got to go get a drink of water,’ and then he wouldn’t [come back]. He’d leave.”
White called Messer “an excellent broadcaster” who showed him the ropes along with Rizzuto, who had been calling Yankees games since he retired from playing in 1956 and would do so for 40 years.
White left the booth after the ’88 season. “I think [principal owner George Steinbrenner] needed a broadcaster who was more pro-Yankee, so I found something else to do,” White said.
That something was being president of the National League from 1989-94.
White largely dropped out of public view for years until his memoir came out, time he spent traveling the world with his longtime partner, Nancy McKee, who died in January, a loss that devastated him.
White has four living children, one of whom lives nearby. He said he still is in touch with some baseball friends but rarely watches games. New president of the National League Bill White on Feb. 3, 1989. Credit: AP
“I wasn’t interested in baseball in the first place,” he said. “I shouldn’t say it, but I made a mistake playing baseball, in my opinion, because I could still be helping people.”
He initially enrolled at Hiram College in Ohio, planning a career in medicine.
“I played baseball to make money to go to college,” he said. “Back then we needed minority doctors. Unfortunately, I started hitting a baseball.”
He used his platform as a sports celebrity to encourage later generations to pursue their own dreams.
“I hope I’ve helped a lot of kids realize they can do things, that they’re not handicapped by certain things that handicapped people years ago,” White said.
Dave Sims, the Yankees’ new radio voice, is 72, but he once was a young person of color inspired by White. Sims was growing up in Philadelphia when White got his start in local TV there. New Yankees radio broadcaster Dave Sims, left, during a visit with Bill White, a former Yankees TV announcer, in February 2025. Credit: Dave Sims
Sims spent a day with White over the winter.
“I told him, ‘Hey, you’re one of the reasons why I’m sitting here; I looked up to you,’ ” Sims told Newsday. “It meant a lot to see him.”
White may not be a doctor, but he acknowledged things worked out well for him.
“The man upstairs has been good to me,” he said.
Nothing was better than those times in the booth with Rizzuto. White said that in a cutthroat business full of overinflated egos, “We never had that.”
White was on the veterans committee that voted the former Yankees shortstop into the Hall of Fame in 1994.
Messer died in 2001 and Rizzuto in 2007, shortly after one last visit from White.
“I loved Rizzuto,” he said. “We laughed all the time. You should have heard it between innings. ‘Hey, White, where you gonna eat?!’ ”
White smiled at the memory.
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
