SAN FRANCISCO -- Frank Crosetti, who went from the same San Francisco Italian-American neighborhood as Joe DiMaggio, and traveled to New York to wear Yankees pinstripes for 36 years, has died. He was 91.

Crosetti played shortstop for 17 seasons in New York, alongside a legion of Yankee greats including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and DiMaggio, then coached for 20 more years. He collected enough World Series rings for all his fingers and toes, as Yankees manager Joe Torre once joked.

"He was Yankee all the way around. We had no other team. He only played with the Yankees," said his wife of 63 years, Norma.

Crosetti, who remained remarkably healthy in later life, died Monday night of complications from a fall in early January, Norma said.

Playing on eight Yankees World Series championship teams from 1932 to '48, Crosetti had a career batting average of .245 with 98 home runs and 649 RBI.

His best year may have been 1938, when he led the American League with 27 stolen bases. His 757 plate appearances that year set a major league record for a 154-game season.

"He was a true Yankee," said the team's spokesman, Rick Cerrone.

Nicknamed "the Crow," Crosetti was known for old-school tactics such as stealing the opposing team's signs from the dugout, hiding a baseball to tag out a base runner and getting on base by purposely getting hit by pitches.

He was also present for some of baseball's major events including Babe Ruth's home run in the 1932 World Series against the Chicago Cubs. Crosetti claimed Ruth wasn't calling his shot but pointing to the Chicago bench. He was also there for Lou Gehrig's good-bye in 1939, and for the last time Ruth put on his No. 3 uniform in 1948.

After retiring in 1948, Crosetti was the Yankees' third-base coach for 20 years, taking part in 15 more World Series.

"He didn't take the game home with him win or lose," said his son, John Crosetti of San Diego. "Losses didn't bother him. He was a Yankee. He expected to win the World Series and they kind of did."

Lori Gilbert, of The Record, a newspaper in Stockton, the town that Crosetti made his home after retiring, knew the Yankee for five years and heard some of his stories in December.

She wrote of one that he told her about being sick at an exhibition game at Yale when he was a young player.

"Teammate Lou Gehrig, who was going home to visit his parents in New York, asked manager Joe McCarthy if he couldn't take the young player home with him," she wrote. "McCarthy said sure. After serving a home-cooked meal, Gehrig's mother made Crosetti drink, 'the tallest glass of hot red wine I'd ever seen,' Crosetti remembered. And it cured what ailed him."

Frank Peter Joseph Crosetti was born Oct. 4, 1910 in San Francisco, where he grew up in North Beach, where the DiMaggio brothers -- Joe, Vince and Dominic -- also lived.

As a boy, Crosetti sometimes played doubleheader sandlot games, starting at his North Beach neighborhood before hopping on a bus to Oakland for more competition. Later, he'd do the same for the minor league Seals in doubleheaders against the rival Oakland Oaks.

Another Italian-American from San Francisco, Tony Lazzeri, made it to the Yankees first, followed by Crosetti and five years later by DiMaggio. The trio preferred to let their bats do the talking.

"We didn't pop off," Crosetti once said.

Their personalities became clear soon after the Yankees acquired DiMaggio and Lazzeri offered to drive Crosetti and the rookie from San Francisco to Florida for spring training.

"Tony didn't talk much and DiMag didn't say a word. He just sat in the back seat and looked out the window," Crosetti recalled. "We would go two or three hours and then look at the other guy and say, 'Wanna drive?' and then we'd shift places. Sometimes that was all the conversation in the car.

"Finally, on about the third day, I said to Tony, 'Let's let the kid drive.' So he turned to him in the back seat and said, 'Wanna drive, kid?' And DiMag said, "I don't know how.' I don't know if he was pulling our legs or not."

Crosetti preferred Stockton to big city life. He always drove cross-country to California the day after a World Series, rather than celebrating in New York with Mickey Mantle and other teammates.

"He was a bit of a loner," said friend and former teammate Charlie Silvera. "That was his way."

Silvera said Crosetti was well-respected as a coach and his understated ways made him "the epitome of the Yankees."

He rarely opened up with reporters, and in retirement, seemed to prefer hunting and fishing to baseball. "He preferred being low-key and out of the spotlight," his son said.

Still, he graciously gave autographs when fans stopped by his house or approached him at games, and he never charged, his son said.

Crosetti would often stop by the Yankees clubhouse when the team visited the Bay Area to play the Athletics. He and his wife attended one Yankees game in Oakland this year, before his eyesight started to fail.

"Frankie was a wonderful man, a passionate baseball man," said Marty Lurie, who hosts a radio show for KFRC before Oakland A's games. "He sparkled when he was in the stadium. Derek Jeter would love to see him every time he came to town. Frankie would tease him about breaking all his records."

Crosetti's other survivors include a daughter, Ellen Biggs of Menlo Park, three grandsons and two great-grandchildren.

Private services were set for Friday in San Francisco.