Staten Island Sports Hall of Fame
Relive It All Again
Larry Napp, a baseball and football star at Lincoln High School in Brooklyn and a promising minor league outfielder, forged a 24-year career as a major-league umpire and a boxing referee.
A crew chief for most of his umpiring career, Napp worked four All-Star Games and four World Series – including Don Larsen’s 1956 perfect game – before becoming the American League supervisor of umpires.
Joe Ryan scored 11 touchdowns in his only season of football at New Dorp High School, before starring at Villanova, getting drafted by the Chicago Bears, and playing with the New York Titans in the first season of the American Football League.
Ryan answered a calling as a coach, building varsity programs and character, first at Mount Loretto when it served as a foster home, then at Susan Wagner High School and St. Joseph by-the Sea High School.
Shannon Payne was a mind-bending pitcher at Port Richmond High School – where she threw four perfect games and 18 no-hitters, while pitching the Red Raiders to back-to-back city championships – and at Long Island University.
Payne was a two-time Northeast Conference MVP and an All-East pitcher at LIU, and capped her career with three innings of no-hit ball against the U.S. team that won gold at the 2004 Olympics.
Buddy O’Grady was a basketball floor general from high school – where he helped guide St. Peter’s to the 1938 city championship game – to Georgetown, to the American Basketball Association, forerunner of the NBA.
O’Grady played three seasons for the Washington Capitols, St. Louis Bombers, and Providence Steamrollers of the ABA, before returning to coach his alma mater. When Georgetown celebrated its greatest players in 2007, O’Grady was among them.
Sonny Grasso, a three-sport athlete at Curtis High School, hit .355 and .321 in baseball’s minor leagues, but his baseball career was interrupted by World War Two and cut short by a shoulder injury.
Grasso came home to coach at Augustinian Academy, Moore Catholic, the Catholic Youth Organization and the College of Staten Island, where he is the only coach to win CUNY titles in both softball and baseball.