Yankees Birthday of the Day: Frankie Crosetti

On this, "Crow's" 116th birthday, let's look back at the life and times of the serial winner.

Crosetti was born in San Francisco, the son of an Italian immigrant father and a mother whose parents were immigrants themselves. He would end up being one of a couple Italian-American Yankees from the Bay Area, as future teammates Joe DiMaggio and Tony Lazzeri were San Francisco-born children of immigrants themselves.

As a child, Crosetti learned baseball with his brother, using a whittled down board as a bat and the end of a corncob as a ball . He never much loved school and eventually dropped out when he was 16. He started playing semi-pro baseball out on the west coast and soon caught the attention of the Pacific Coast League's San Francisco Seals. While the Seals appreciated his talent, they thought he was a bit too small and began sending deliveries of milk to his house every morning. He soon packed on 10 pounds and began playing for the Seals in 1928.