40 Fun Facts About Anthony Rizzo

Anthony Rizzo fired up the Cubs clubhouse before Game 7 of the 2016 World Series with the theme from which film?

Rocky blared from the clubhouse stereo while Rizzo shadow-boxed on a coffee table and quoted the movie. He began the act with the Cubs one loss from elimination and repeated it because they kept winning.

Where did Anthony Rizzo tuck the baseball after catching the final out of the 2016 World Series?

His back pocket kept the ball safe while Rizzo threw his hands in the air and ran to the pile of teammates. He then gave it to a front-office staffer to guard during the party that followed.

Anthony Rizzo beat which cancer as an 18-year-old minor leaguer, three years before reaching the majors?

Hodgkin's lymphoma was found after Rizzo's legs swelled up on a road trip in 2008. Six months of chemotherapy put him in remission, and he later started a foundation for families facing the same fight.

Anthony Rizzo's wife Emily got her wish when the couple brought home Kevin, which breed of dog?

A dachshund named Kevin had long been Emily's dream, and he became Rizzo's first dog. Kevin got to run on the grass at big-league ballparks and will chase down any ball thrown near him.

On the day the Cubs celebrated his 2025 retirement, Anthony Rizzo watched the game from which part of Wrigley Field?

The bleachers put Rizzo right where a Cubs rookie's first career home run came down, and the ball bounced off his hand. He laughed it off with the fans around him.

Which teammate threw to Anthony Rizzo for the final out of the 2016 World Series?

Kris Bryant fielded a slow grounder in the tenth inning and fired across the diamond to end a 108-year wait. He and Rizzo were such close friends that the pair became known as Bryzzo.

Anthony Rizzo played for which country at the 2013 World Baseball Classic because of his family's roots there?

Italy could call on Rizzo because his family came from the Sicilian town of Ciminna. He played five games for the Italians, then sat out the 2017 tournament to rest after the Cubs' long title run.

Anthony Rizzo sent daily photos of their dogs playing together to persuade which Yankees star to re-sign in 2022?

Aaron Judge said the daily texts got to him: snapshots of the two pets roaming the Yankee Stadium grass together. He stayed in New York on a nine-year contract.

Anthony Rizzo's unusual batting stance helped him set a Cubs franchise record in which category?

Hit by pitches became a Rizzo trademark: he was plunked 165 times as a Cub. In 2015 he took 30 for the team, making him only the second player with 30 homers and 30 plunkings in one season.

Anthony Rizzo and the Cubs came back from three games to one down to beat which team in the 2016 World Series?

The Cleveland Indians were one win from their first title since 1948 before the Cubs took three straight. Rizzo hit .360 in the Series, with a home run in Game 6 and a run-scoring single in Game 7.

Anthony Rizzo homered in Game 6 of the 2016 NLCS as the Cubs eliminated which team to reach the World Series?

The Los Angeles Dodgers went down in six games, with Rizzo homering off Clayton Kershaw in the clincher. He had started that postseason in a deep slump, then caught the throw that ended the NLCS.

Which team drafted Anthony Rizzo out of a Florida high school in 2007 but traded him before he reached the majors?

The Boston Red Sox took Rizzo in the sixth round of the draft. They invited him to Fenway Park during his cancer treatment a year later, then traded him in 2010 for an All-Star first baseman.

Anthony Rizzo made his major-league debut in 2011 with which team, which traded him away seven months later?

The San Diego Padres promoted Rizzo as their most celebrated call-up in decades, but he hit just .141 that year. The executive who brought him up later blamed himself for doing it too early.

Anthony Rizzo won which honor in 2017 for his charity work with young cancer patients, calling it the greatest of all?

The Roberto Clemente Award goes each year to the player who best combines character with community work. Rizzo said it would go front and center, ahead of anything else he had ever done.

Anthony Rizzo won which major award four times, including three in a row from 2018 to 2020?

Gold Glove voters honored Rizzo's work at first base in 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020. In the first of those years his defense saved 11 runs, the most of any first baseman in the majors.

Which Cubs manager moved slugger Anthony Rizzo to the leadoff spot in 2017 and later let him pitch in a lopsided loss?

Joe Maddon batted Rizzo first to shake the Cubs out of a slump, and Rizzo reached base in the first inning of his first seven games there. He homered to lead off three of them.

Anthony Rizzo took which role with the Cubs when he announced his retirement as a player in September 2025?

Team ambassador was the job the Cubs' owner raised over dinner that summer, while the Rizzo family was visiting Chicago. Rizzo said he wanted to carry the torch that the club's legends once carried for him.

Anthony Rizzo switched from 44 to 48 with the Yankees because 44 is retired there for which slugger?

Reggie Jackson, known as Mr. October, had the number retired by the Yankees in 1993. Rizzo had worn 44 for all ten of his seasons in Chicago, longer than all but one Cub in history.

Just after being traded in 2021, Anthony Rizzo said a last goodbye to which famous feature of Wrigley Field?

The outfield ivy got a last embrace: before leaving the ballpark, Rizzo walked out and leaned back into the vines on the brick wall. He had played 1,308 regular-season games as a Cub.

Anthony Rizzo called what the most important thing to happen to the Cubs in 100 years after their 2016 Game 7 win?

A rain delay of 17 minutes stopped Game 7 just after the Cubs had let a late lead slip. The players used it to hold a meeting that settled them, then scored twice in the tenth inning to win.

Anthony Rizzo was the top power prospect in a December 2010 trade for which All-Star first baseman?

Adrián González was a three-time All-Star when the deal was struck, and Rizzo went the other way with three other players. A minor-league manager who had coached both said their styles were very similar.

Which executive acquired Anthony Rizzo three separate times, while working for three different franchises?

Jed Hoyer helped draft Rizzo as an assistant, traded for him as a general manager, then dealt for him again after joining the Cubs. He was also the one who traded Rizzo away in 2021.

Which future Cubs teammate, a cancer survivor himself, met with the teenage Anthony Rizzo during his treatment in 2008?

Jon Lester talked with Rizzo for more than an hour about staying positive, and three days later he threw a no-hitter. The two were later reunited in Chicago and won a championship together.

Anthony Rizzo returned to which Florida high school, his alma mater, to speak at a vigil in February 2018?

Marjory Stoneman Douglas, in Parkland, had lost 17 people in a shooting the day before. Rizzo later met survivors before a game and helped donate $305,000 to a fund for the victims and their families.

Anthony Rizzo gave $150,000 to his old Florida high school in 2020 to help pay for what?

Field lights for the baseball and softball diamonds were the gift, so the teams could play after dark. The school thanked him by naming its ballpark Anthony Rizzo Field.

Anthony Rizzo, pitching in a 2021 blowout, struck out which Atlanta Braves star with a 61-mph curveball?

Freddie Freeman, a fellow first baseman, struck out on a two-strike curve in a game Atlanta led 10-0. It was Rizzo's second trip to the mound: in 2018 he retired his only batter on a fly ball.

A 2023 collision at first base with which star left Anthony Rizzo with post-concussion syndrome?

Fernando Tatís Jr. knocked Rizzo to the ground on a pickoff play in May 2023. Rizzo kept playing for two months while his hitting collapsed, and the Yankees then traced the trouble to that play.

Anthony Rizzo struck out in his first big-league at-bat in 2011, then got which kind of hit for his first?

A triple, the rarest kind of hit, got Rizzo started, and he came around to score in a 7-3 win. His first home run followed two days later.

Anthony Rizzo had which role in R.B.I. Baseball 15, the 2015 edition of a revived video game series?

Cover athlete was a fitting job for a first baseman coming off a 32-homer, All-Star season. The game came from Major League Baseball's own media company, the second entry in its reboot of the old series.

Anthony Rizzo sang the Cubs' victory song with Bill Murray on which TV show days after the 2016 World Series?

Saturday Night Live put Rizzo, two teammates and the famous Cubs fan in barbershop hats for the Weekend Update segment. The players also turned up in a sketch as hired party entertainers.

In 2014 Anthony Rizzo became the youngest winner of which honor for players who are role models to young people?

The Branch Rickey Award, named for the executive who signed Jackie Robinson, recognized community service. Rizzo was also its last winner: the prize was handed out for the final time that year.

The Cubs landed Anthony Rizzo in a January 2012 trade by giving up which former first-round draft pick?

Andrew Cashner, a right-handed starter, was the price, in a swap arranged by executives who had known Rizzo since drafting him. Rizzo went on to hit 242 home runs for the Cubs, sixth in franchise history.

Anthony Rizzo's foundation announced a $3.5 million gift in 2017 to which Chicago institution for young patients?

Lurie Children's Hospital has been the foundation's main Chicago partner, and Rizzo visited its patients for years. At his retirement ceremony he wore a jersey covered in the signatures of kids he had met there.

Before turning pro, Anthony Rizzo had signed to play for which college, where his brother John played football?

Florida Atlantic, in Boca Raton, lost Rizzo to a $325,000 signing bonus. His family later learned he was in remission while boarding a plane to watch John's team play.

Anthony Rizzo was intentionally walked in the tenth inning of 2016's Game 7 before which teammate's go-ahead double?

Ben Zobrist had been hitless in four trips that night before lining a double into the left-field corner. Rizzo then came home with the Cubs' eighth run, which proved to be the margin of victory.

Anthony Rizzo presented the final-out ball from the 2016 World Series to which Cubs figure at the victory rally?

Tom Ricketts, the club's chairman, received the ball on stage in front of the crowd. Rizzo said it meant more to the man who had backed the rebuild than it would sitting in a safe-deposit box.

Anthony Rizzo entered the Home Run Derby for the first time in 2015 and lost in the first round to which slugger?

Josh Donaldson beat Rizzo by a single homer, 9 to 8, in a redesigned contest that used timed, head-to-head rounds. Todd Frazier went on to win it in front of his hometown crowd.

Anthony Rizzo choked up at the 2016 victory rally while thanking which retiring teammate, whom he called a brother?

David Ross, the veteran catcher teammates called Grandpa Rossy, had played his last game in that Game 7. Rizzo said Ross had taught him how to become a real winner.

Which rock singer joined Anthony Rizzo and Cindy Crawford to lead the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field in 2025?

Eddie Vedder, the Pearl Jam frontman and a die-hard Cubs fan, had also sung the stretch at Wrigley during the 2016 World Series. This time he sang beside Rizzo on the first baseman's retirement day.

Anthony Rizzo missed more than two months of the 2024 season after a collision at first base caused which injury?

A broken arm came from a June collision with an opposing pitcher. Soon after returning, Rizzo fractured fingers on his right hand, yet he still played in that year's World Series.