Tag: Sports – Baseball

Peter C. Fontaine

If you read the Sports section of West Bay newspapers, you most likely saw Pete Fontaine’s byline.  Pete was synonymous with sports. Honored by his peers on numerous occasions, including the 6th State Group of Writing Excellence and Words Unlimited, (an organization for sports writers and announcers), Pete also had his own local radio program featuring his

Read More »

Peter Laudatti

Peter Laudatti was a dominant figure in the history of sports in Rhode Island during the first half of the 20th century. He was involved in numerous sporting ventures, including bicycling, baseball, boxing, football, and soccer. Born in 1884 at Sante Croce del Sannio in Italy, he immigrated to the United States with his family

Read More »

Judge James E. Dooley

James E. Dooley was a leading sports figure in Rhode Island. He became part owner of the Providence Steam Roller of the National Football League from 1916 until 1933, when the team folded. The 1928 team won the NFL Championship with an 8-1-2 record. Dooley was one of the founders of the Canadian-American (Can-Am) Hockey League in 1926, as well as the founder

Read More »

John Cooney

Known as the “Cranston Cooney’s,” this family produced three major league baseball players and two others who had successful minor league careers. The first was Jimmy Cooney, who played 324 games for the Cubs and Senators when Ernest Thayer wrote the famous poem “Casey at the Bat.” Many baseball experts believe that the Cooney mentioned

Read More »

James Cooney Jr.

Known as the “Cranston Cooney’s,” this family produced three major league baseball players and two others who had successful minor league careers. The first was Jimmy Cooney, who played 324 games for the Cubs and Senators when Ernest Thayer wrote the famous poem “Casey at the Bat.” Many baseball experts believe that the Cooney mentioned

Read More »

Roland Hemond

Just in time for his 92nd birthday, Roland Hemond, legendary Major League executive and scout, has been inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame. Hemond, a native of Central Falls, is a product of that great Rhode Island baseball tradition called the Tim O’Neil Leagues, a comprehensive, age-graded, system of baseball leagues, devised

Read More »

Charles H. Butler

Charles “Charlie” Butler was a pioneer in integrated amateur baseball in Rhode Island. Butler was born in Providence on June 11, 1926, the second to last of six children of Clarence A. and Sarah L. (nee Morris) Butler. His parents raised the Butler siblings in what was then known as the West Elmwood section of

Read More »

Michael Thomas “Mike” Roarke

Michael T. “Mike” Roarke (1930-2019) was born on November 8, 1930 to Walter J. and Mary T. (nee Riley) Roarke in West Warwick, Rhode Island where he was raised through his high school years. Vice President of the West Warwick High School Class of 1948, Mike was a schoolboy star in baseball and football in

Read More »

James Cooney Sr.

Known as the “Cranston Cooney’s,” this family produced three major league baseball players and two others who had successful minor league careers. The first was Jimmy Cooney, who played 324 games for the Cubs and Senators when Ernest Thayer wrote the famous poem “Casey at the Bat.” Many baseball experts believe that the Cooney mentioned

Read More »

Randall C. “Randy” Hien

Randall C. (“Randy”) Hien, 1949-2006, became legendary in Rhode Island for his remarkable accomplishments in two fields. As one of the most successful baseball coaches in the state, he devoted himself tirelessly to Rhode Island youth sports for thirty years. During that time, he transformed his beloved Lincoln Little League All-Stars into a nationally-competitive powerhouse,

Read More »

Chester R. Nichols, Jr.

Chester R. “Chet” Nichols spent nine years as a major league pitcher. As a rookie with the Boston Braves, he led the National League in 1951 with the lowest earned run average. Chet was a schoolboy pitching star and all-state selection at Pawtucket East High School. He was signed as a young left-hander with the

Read More »

Frank F. Frisch

Frank Frisch was an American baseball player and manager. He played in Major League Baseball for the New York Giants (1919–1926) and St. Louis Cardinals (1927–1937), and managed the Cardinals (1933–1938), Pittsburgh Pirates (1940–1946), and Chicago Cubs (1949–1951). After his retirement, he moved to Charlestown, Rhode Island, where he spent the last 17 years of

Read More »

Wilma H. Briggs

Wilma  Briggs was born in East Greenwich on November 6, 1930.  One of 11 children, she grew up on a farm in the Frenchtown section of town.  Her father,  Fred Briggs,  was a semi-professional baseball player  and coach.  As a young  girl, after performing daily farm chores,  Wilma typically  joined  her father and brothers  in highly- competitive

Read More »

Mary Elizabeth “Lizzie” Murphy

Only one woman has ever played baseball with a team of major leaguers in a big-league ballpark. Her name was Mary Elizabeth Murphy, and she was born and raised in Warren, Rhode Island. On August 14, 1922, she played for a team of “all-stars” in an exhibition game against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway

Read More »

Charles Leo “Gabby” Hartnett

Charles Leo “Gabby” Hartnett, nicknamed “Old Tomato Face,” was a professional American baseball player and manager. He played almost his entire career in Major League Baseball as a catcher with the Chicago Cubs from 1922 to 1940. He spent the final season as a player-coach with the New York Giants in 1941. After his playing

Read More »

Andrew “Andy” J. Coakley

Andy Coakley is remembered most as: “Lou Gehrig’s coach” in his 37 years as head of Columbia University’s baseball program. But this overlooks his extensive influence on the game. Once a promising right-hander with Connie Mack’s Athletics in the early 20th century, Coakley was also a labor pioneer, a forward-thinking league organizer, a team owner,

Read More »

James Lou Gorman

James Lou Gorman, 1929-2011, a native of Providence, was a highly respected major League Baseball executive, and Senior Vice President and General Manger of the Boston Red Sox who was honored with two Major League Baseball “Executive of the Year” awards, and was a former standout athlete at LaSalle Academy in Rhode Island and Stonehill

Read More »

George Pulliam

George Pulliam, 1923-1956, is regarded by some as Rhode Island’s greatest all-around schoolboy athlete. At Cranston High, he won All-State honors twice in football and hockey and once in baseball, where he played at every position but catcher. For his extraordinary efforts he was nicknamed “The Cranston Crusher.” He was the fullback and star of

Read More »

Timothy “Tim” O’Neil

The genial and dedicated man who was to be crowned “The King of the Sandlots” was born in South Providence on December 14, 1878 along with his twin brother Edward. Their parents were Edward and Ann (Lynch). Tim was an enterprising paperboy in his youth, but received little formal  schooling. Fortunately he was a proficient baseball player and

Read More »

Alfred A. “Smokey” Cerrone

Alfred “Smokey” Cerrone was a highly successful businessman, athlete, musician, innovator, and public-minded citizen who developed one of the world’s largest automobile agencies. He was instrumental in numerous charitable fund-raising ventures including with the Lincoln-Cumberland Boys Club and St. Joseph’s Pine Harbor School for children with special needs. He has given his personal support to

Read More »

Joseph Samuels

To those who grew up in Rhode Island, the Outlet Department Store was as familiar and as dominant in the downtown area as were such familiar establishments as the Albee Theater, Gibson’s, the Boston Store, Gladdings, Shepard’s, and Tilden-Thurber. When Joseph and Leon Samuels opened a small store on Westminster Street in 1894, every possible

Read More »

Bernard Thomas “Slick” Pina

Bernard Thomas “Slick” Pina, 1930-2013, was the oldest and most accomplished of three brothers from South Providence who dominated the local sports scene in the 1950s. Slick’s brother Tommy followed him as a two-time all-state halfback at LaSalle Academy. Joe, who did not attend high school or college, compiled a remarkable record as an amateur

Read More »

Michael Pappas

Michael Pappas was an Executive Vice President for the Pawtucket Boys & Girls Club, for which he served in various capacities for more than forty years. He was also a sportscaster for several RI radio stations, a prominent public relations advocate for many area sports events, and a public address announcer for professional hockey and

Read More »

Hugh Duffy

Hugh Duffy, 1866-1954, from Cranston, was one of major league baseball’s greatest hitters and is still the holder of the single-season batting average record of .438, set in 1894, when Duffy was an outfielder for Boston in the National League. In seventeen major league seasons from 1888 through 1906, Duffy compiled a lifetime average of

Read More »

John “Jack” Anthony Flynn

John Anthony Flynn was the legendary baseball coach at Providence College. He was raised in South Providence when it was an Irish immigrant ghetto. As a boy, he lived very near the slaughterhouses where the neighborhood dogs went to feast on the scraps. That practice gave Jack’s area the derisive name “Dogtown.” Jack and his

Read More »

Clement W. Labine

Clem Labine, 1926-2007, was a three-time National League All-Star who was inducted into the Brooklyn Dodgers Hall of Fame in 1986. He was regarded as baseball’s best relief pitcher in the 1950’s. A native of Woonsocket, Labine played in six World Series and on three World Championship Teams, before retiring in 1963. He was named

Read More »

Albert Henry “Hank” Soar

Hank Soar was arguably the most talented, versatile athlete ever to come from Rhode Island. He was born in Alton, Rhode Island, on August 17, 1914, to Arthur and Edith (Nelson) Soar. He played football, basketball, and baseball at Pawtucket High School and captained all three teams. Soar also played goalie in soccer. He was

Read More »

John P. Cronin

“Jack” Cronin played on New England’s first National Football League Championship team and coached football, baseball, and hockey at LaSalle Academy for nearly half a century. He was born in Hingham, Massachusetts on May 3, 1903. Cronin starred at Boston College, where he was a “triple-threat,” excelling in passing, running, and punting. His 60-yard-per-kick punting

Read More »

David E. Lopes

David E. Lopes was a stand-out second baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers, played in four World Series, and was a four-time National League All-Star during his sixteen year Major League career. Born in East Providence, Lopes grew up in South Providence and payed in the Fox Point Little League and became one of LaSalle

Read More »

Frank William Keaney

Frank Keaney, legendary coach at the University of Rhode Island, shocked the basketball world with a revolutionary, run-and-gun “firehouse” style of play. His “fast break” plays transformed basketball like the forward pass changed football. Most teams wilted in the face of the Rhode Island break. Unaccustomed to constant pressure and unable to stand the pace,

Read More »

George R. “Birdie” Tebbets

George R. “Birdie” Tebbetts, 1912″1999: Raised in New Hampshire, “Birdie” Tebbetts was a precocious, intelligent, and athletic youngster who served as the team mascot for the “Nashua Millionaires,” an independent semi-professional team owned by the future New Hampshire Governor, Francis Parnell Murphy. Murphy encouraged young Tebbetts to aim high. Tebbetts did just that, becoming an

Read More »

Joseph Gomes

Most Rhode Islanders recognize the strong relationship between their state and professional baseball at major and minor league levels. Few, however, are aware that this connection extends to the professional Black teams in the Negro Leagues during the age of racial segregation in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. In those years, African Americans participated in

Read More »

Charles G. “Hoss” Radbourn

Charles G. Radbourn, 1854-1897, born in Rochester, New York, “Old Hoss” played baseball for Providence, Boston, and Cincinnati in the National League from 1881 through 1891. He is regarded as the greatest pitcher of the 19th century with 308 wins and 191 losses in 12 years of competition. In 1884, he pitched the Providence Grays

Read More »

John E. Moran

John E. Moran, 1913-1997, served as President and Co-founder of McLaughin & Moran Distributors, which was a recognized leader in its’ field for over fifty years. An outstanding all-state athlete out of LaSalle Academy, he starred for Manhattan College in football and baseball. For the next fifty years, with time out for U.S. Naval service,

Read More »

Napoleon Lajoie

Napoleon (“Nap,” “Larry,” “The Big Frenchman”) was born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island on September 5, 1874. He received little formal education during his childhood and instead played baseball for a local Woonsocket mill team under the alias “Sandy” to conceal his identity from his parents who disapproved of him playing the game. Lajoie broke in

Read More »

William H. Matthews

William H. “Dixie” Matthews was considered one of the finest athletes Rhode Island has ever produced. He was born in Providence on Dec. 2, 1908, son of Charles and Mary Matthews. He was an incredible all-around athlete who excelled at baseball, basketball, and football. He captained the basketball team at Technical High School, was an

Read More »

William F. F. Farley

William F. Farley, of Pawtucket, now of Chicago, is businessman who was was chairman and CEO of Fruit of the Loom the highly successful international manufacturer and distributor of basic family apparel for fifteen years (1985-1999). Farley acquired Fruit of the Loom in 1986. Under Farley’s leadership, sales exceeded $2 billion. He has received the

Read More »

Bernard Mondor

Bernard Mondor, 1925-2010, was a Canadian-born business man who became one of R.I.’s most outstanding sports promoters as owner of the Pawtucket Red Sox Baseball Team, which was recognized as the strongest franchise in the International League. He entered the business world after service in the Navy, acquiring seven corporations with sales over $13 million.

Read More »

George Patrick Duffy

Normally sportscasters ” with such notable excep- tions of Chris Schenkel and Chris Clark ” do not gain accep- tance to the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame, but if one is a sportscaster for seven decades, the voice of the Rhode Island Reds for a quarter-century, the longtime coach of youth sports in his

Read More »

Fred Benson

Fred Benson devoted eight decades to Block Island, R.I., serving as police commissioner, fireman, and president of the chamber of commerce. Islanders continue to revel in sharing their cherished memories of the legendary jack-of-all trades for whom the town’s beach pavilion is named. Born in Boston on April 14, 1895, Benson was the son of

Read More »

Dr. Walter F. Jusczyk

Walter Juszcyk graduated from West Warwick High School in the class of 1937. He left his mark on the school having been class president for three years, Journal Honor Roll Boy, All-State in baseball, and football captain of the Wizards. He rated with the best pitchers ever coached by Jack McCarthy. In 1936, West Warwick

Read More »

Michael A, Tamburro

Michael A. Tamburro, was born in Worcester, Massachusetts on February 13, 1952, the son of Michael and Josephine Tamburro. Mike pursued a double major (Business and Journalism) at U. Mass Amherst with the goal of becoming a baseball statistician. Instead, at 23 years of age, he became the youngest general manager in professional baseball when

Read More »

John Montgomery Ward

John Montgomery “Monte” Ward, 1860-1925, a member of baseball’s Hall of Fame, was a native of Bellefonte, Pennsylvania who attended Pennsylvania State College before embarking upon a career as a professional ballplayer. He reached the major leagues in 1878 as a pitcher for the Providence Grays of the National League, just two years after the

Read More »

Frank Maznicki

Frank Maznicki, 1920-2013, was a former all-sports star at Westerly High School who gained football fame with the Boston College Eagles and the Chicago Bears. He became highly successful as a high school football and baseball coach.

Read More »

Paul A. Hines

Paul Hines (1855-1935) was born in Virginia and died in Maryland, but no player was more associated with the Providence Grays during that team’s major league heyday. Hines played in 1659 games in three leagues from 1872 through 1891, made 2,135 hits, batted over .300 eleven times, and posted a career average of .302. He

Read More »

Warren Walden

William Walden, 1907-1987, a native of Providence, was a pioneer Rhode Island radio and television sportscaster. He was also a former athlete who served for twenty years as secretary of the Tim O’Neil amateur baseball league. He was the former News Director of WJAR-TV, and a native of Providence. Walden was actively involved with many

Read More »

David R. Stenhouse

David R. Stenhouse’s well-rounded career includes playing high school, college, and professional sports; college coaching; business; fundraising; and community service. For his athletic attainments, he has been inducted into the University of Rhode Island and the Rhode Island College Halls of Fame. A native of Westerly, Dave was a star athlete at Westerly High School

Read More »
Scroll to Top