Frazetta Fridays w/Frazetta Girls #5 | The Artist as Athlete

Frank Frazetta could have been a professional athlete. He came of age playing baseball, participating in pick-up games in his neighborhood in Brooklyn, and later, for the local sandlot leagues. When he was around 20 years old, at the end of the 1940s, Frazetta emerged as a talented left-fielder. After leading the Coney Islanders of the Parade Grounds Baseball League with a .459 batting average, scouts noticed Frazetta. Being an athletically skilled and reliable player, the New York Giants made him a professional offer in 1948. Frazetta declined.

It was the folly of young love and the grueling lifestyle of traveling with the farm teams that dissuaded him from entering into the major leagues. In a 1977 interview, Frazetta discussed this, saying “I remember that going to another state seemed like going to the end of the world. They bus you bac ...