Call me Rocky

For most of my life, I’ve been a pretty determined fellow. That has not always served me well, however. Take the time when I was nine. That was the year I decided I wanted to change my name — to Rocky.

No, not that Rocky

Growing up, I was never a big fan of the name Terry. I’ve grown more accustomed to it over time, having the benefit of its use for 60-plus years. In fact, its distinctiveness probably suits my contrarian nature. But when I was nine? Ugh. Terry didn’t suit my self-image as an independent young man — well, as independent as a nine-year-old can be. Not even the fact I was a goaltender in minor hockey and one of the greatest goalies of that era was Terry Sawchuk, could dissuade me. I just figured Sawchuk surely hated his name as much as I hated mine.

But Rocky? Why Rocky? Well, it was in honour of my first true boyhood hero, the great left fielder for the Detroit Tigers, Rocco Domenico (Rocky) Colavito Jr.

I grew up in a small white-bread Ontario town so I understood nothing about ethnicity, Italian or otherwise. All I knew was that Rocky Colavito was about the coolest-sounding name ever and if I could be called Rocky, too, maybe some of that coolness would rub off on me.

Yet Rocky Colavito was cool for more than just his name. He had just come off his best season ever: 129 runs on 169 hits, 140 RBIs, a .290 average and a .402 on-base percentage. Players today would kill for numbers like that. Moreover, the Tigers had managed a pretty good season themselves: 101 wins, which in most seasons would be pennant-worthy. Alas, it was 1961, the year the Yankees, an even more formidable team, won 109 games behind Roger Maris’s 61 home runs and Mickey Mantle’s 54. The Tigers, sigh, finished eight games back.

The only games in which the Tigers regularly trounced the powerful Yankees were in my imagination, as I played the game I loved by myself, in the parking lot of the school across the street, equipped with nothing more than a ball and a bat.

My hero, Rocky Colavito

Like my father, who grew up as the only boy on a farm, I was skilled at keeping myself entertained. And certainly, on those endless summer afternoons, I would create entire nine-inning games in my head, the Tigers usually the victors against the best of the rest of the American League. My mother and my sisters would sometimes watch from across the street, and wonder how it was that I could miss the ball so many times with my swings. What they didn’t realize was that they were watching the Yankees at bat. When the Tigers were at the plate, their bats were mighty indeed and the ball sailed to the outer regions of the parking lot. The Tigers had many great players on those magnificent afternoons: Al Kaline, Stormin’ Norman Cash, Dick McAuliffe, Charlie Maxwell, and with the great Jim Bunning, Frank Lary and Hank Aguirre on the mound. But always, always, it was Rocky Colavito who led them to victory.

So it was that with a supreme confidence that defied all logic, even for a nine-year-old, I gamely announced to my mother one day that henceforth, I wished to be known as Rocky. She was indulgent, as mothers are with their little boys, but damn if she didn’t keep getting it wrong and calling me Terry. My dad didn’t even try. He didn’t have to. If he was speaking to me, he called me “Son.” If he was talking about me, I was “the lad” … as in, “What the hell is the lad talking about?”

At my insistence, my mother did inform my Grade 4 teacher of my sudden name change and, surprisingly, she agreed to share the news with the class. Yet the teacher, too, kept getting the name wrong, even after I would correct her.

“It’s Rocky,” I’d say when she called on me.

“Fine,” she’d say, then five minutes later get it wrong again.

As for the rest of the kids … well, they were all nine, too. How do you think they reacted?

So, to my not insignificant regret, the name Rocky did not stick. I had failed in reinventing myself in the image of Rocky Colavito and henceforth faced the disturbing realization that for better or worse, I would be stuck with Terry.

Still, my devotion to the Tigers continued for many years to come. Twenty or so years later, my father gave me a Tigers jacket for Christmas. It still fits like a glove — as does my enduring affection for Rocky Colavito.