In my schoolboy days in the 1960s, Vic Davalillo was a fixture in the Cleveland Indians lineup. Sadly, I learned today that he has died at age 84.
Davalillo, a good-fielding center fielder, finished third in the American League in batting average in 1965 at .301. I remember the Topps “league leader” baseball card the following year showing him beside Tony Oliva and Carl Yastrzemski. We Indians fans rarely saw players from our favorite team on those cards back then, save for Davalillo and flame-throwing Sam McDowell in strikeouts.
In backyard ballgames at our house, we’d imitate the Indians lineup, leading off with Davalillo from the left side of home plate. I had two plastic bats in those days, and I always used the hard, skinny yellow one when pretending to be Davalillo, who poked a lot of singles. I used the beefier brown bat for Leon “Daddy Wags” Wagner, Chuck Hinton and others with home run power.
Davalillo had a long career with multiple teams, although I lost track of him after Cleveland traded him away in 1969. To me, he’ll always be an Indian.
May he rest in peace.
The Ball Caps Blog 
Nice tribute Dan. I didn’t join the baseball card world until the mid to late 70’s so I remember the Davalillo card from 1978 Topps. I think it was his last name I liked so much. I probably didn’t pronounce it right back then, but it still had a nice sound to it.
It WAS hard to pronounce as well as what would turn out to be my first lesson in how to pronounce the “double L” in Spanish. 🙂