My father is like many Clevelanders of a certain age and, yes, ethnicity. He still has not forgiven the local ballclub for trading Rocky Colavito.

Now, if you’re not an Italian-American male in your 70s, maybe the 1960 trade that sent Rocky Colavito to the Tigers doesn’t retain its resonance as a personal affront to your childhood innocence. If I ever want to get my dad riled up, all I have to do is mention the name Harvey Kuenn.

But all Cleveland baseball fans should be able to appreciate what “The Rock” meant to this team and this town, whether they had the pleasure of watching him play personally or simply heard the tall tales about his prodigious power and the impact of that ill-fated -- and much-hated -- swap.

Colavito’s passing on Tuesday, at the age of 91, is an opportunity to let younger fans know that, while Colavito does not have a permanent place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, he certainly etched a permanent place in the hearts of many. There’s a reason he’s inducted in the Guardians’ team Hall of Fame, and there’s a reason a statue of Colavito stands in the city’s Little Italy neighborhood. This handsome, confident, powerful right fielder was more than a ballplayer; he was a local folk hero.

We saw that back in 2013, when Colavito was invited to Progressive Field for an 80^th birthday bash. Prior to a home game, hundreds of fans packed a luncheon where they lined up to meet the Rock and hear his old war stories.

“It’s hard to explain it in words,” a choked-up Colavito said afterward. “So many people remembering you and telling their kids about you and their kids remember you. It’s definitely a wonderful feeling. It really is.”

The feelings between Colavito and the team formerly known as the Indians were not always so warm and fuzzy. Way back when, it was a tortured relationship. The trade in 1960 was made purely out of spite. The Rock, fresh off tying for the American League lead in home runs and finishing fourth in the MVP vote in 1959, wanted a raise from $28,000 to $45,000, and general manager Frank “Trader” Lane fought him on every penny. Colavito’s contract was renewed at $35,000, and Lane felt even that was too much. So on the final day of Spring Training 1960, Lane dealt Colavito to the Tigers for Kuenn – a good hitter, sure, but one who, at 29 years old, was already beginning to fall apart physically.

Colavito was standing on first base, fresh off a single in an exhibition game in Memphis, Tenn., when he got the news. When he saw manager Joe Gordon trotting out to the field, he figured he was getting word that he was being pulled from the game so that he could hit the shower at the hotel and be ready to board the bus on time.

Instead…

“He told me, ‘You’ve been traded to Detroit for Harvey Kuenn,’” Colavito recalled many years later. “And he said, ‘And I want to wish you all the luck in the world.’”

Now, here’s where the myth of the Colavito trade begins to diverge from the truth. Because it is at this point in the story that Colavito famously (and cockily) said, “Kuenn and who else?”

Colavito would insist that was not the case.

“They wanted to make me look bad to the Cleveland fans,” Colavito said. “It would never be true. Harvey was a damn good player… He was the league-leading batter at .353, and I was tied for the league lead in home runs with 42. I would have never said that even if it was a lesser player. They tried to deface you a little bit.”

Didn’t work. Cleveland fans, who had taken up the mantra “Don’t knock the Rock” whenever an ill word was uttered about their beloved home run hitter, were outraged at Lane, who would dubiously gloat that he had traded “a hamburger for a steak.”

Kuenn would make the AL All-Star team in his one season with the Indians, but he was no Colavito, who hit 35 homers or more in three of his four seasons with the Tigers before being dealt to the Kansas City A's for the 1964 season. Then, in a trade that was even worse than the one that dispatched him from Cleveland, Colavito was dealt back to the Indians in 1965. By that point, he was the one entering his post-prime, and the Indians gave up Tommy John and Tommie Agee to get him.

Ah, well. It’s all ancient history now. So, too, is the so-called “Curse of Rocky Colavito” that was said to have followed the franchise for decades after the deal, until the arrival of glory days and annual postseason appearances in the mid-1990s. (For his part, Colavito called the curse “one of the all-time fallacies,” and he’s right. Unfortunately, he was never a pennant-winner, either.)

The Colavito moment that lives on forever, though is his four-homer game on June 10, 1959, at Baltimore's Memorial Stadium. He is one of only 18 players in AL/NL history to achieve the feat.

He also had a game on July 5, 1962, while playing for the Tigers at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium, in which he darn near became the only player in history to hit four homers twice.

The first two homers that day came off Pedro Ramos. The third came off reliever Frank Funk. And in the top of the eighth, facing Bill Dailey, Colavito knew what was at stake.

“I thought to myself, ‘I’d be the only one in history to do it twice,’” he said. “The only one. I said to myself, ‘It would be nice.’ … I hit a pitch off him in the upper deck as good as I hit any of the three of them. I just stood and watched, because it was hooking and hooking and hooking. It went foul by about 15 or 20 feet. And the next pitch, I hit a shot up the middle to the second baseman. So I didn’t get it.”

Though he remained relatively reclusive in his older years, Colavito’s returns to Cleveland were always special. Some folks here – my dad included – will never get over the trade that sent Colavito packing. And that’s part of the unmistakable charm to Colavito’s story. After all, this is a town so many have left willingly and merrily, so it’s hard not to gravitate toward the guys who truly considered it home.

That was Colavito.

“I always felt this is my town,” he once said, misty-eyed. “I love Cleveland. It’s my favorite town in the world. That’s the God’s honest truth.”

RIP to a Cleveland baseball legend. Don’t knock the Rock.