Staten Island Sports Hall of Fame
Relive It All Again
Larry Bearnarth carved out a 40-year career in baseball, first as the top relief pitcher for the early New York Mets, and later as the longtime pitching coach for the Montreal Expos, a minor-league manager, instructor, and scout.
Bearnarth was captain of the baseball and basketball teams at St. Peter’s High School and an All-East pitcher at St. John’s, where he led the Redmen to a Met Conference championship and the NCAA Tournament.
Harry O’Brien coached the Curtis High School baseball team for 28 seasons, and the basketball team for 26, mentoring future major leaguers and establishing a dominating presence unmatched by all but a few coaches anywhere.
O’Brien’s baseball teams won 20 Staten Island championships, including 10 in a row, made it to the city championship game five times, and won a city championship in 1941.
Fred Muche made his living running a West Brighton sporting goods and music store in West Brighton; but his life was helping kids and athletes of all ages.
Muche organized and sponsored six Islandwide baseball leagues, providing umpires and improving fields for every age group from pre-teens to the Twyford-Muche Major League, as well as a youth soccer league.
Dominick Minicucci won a gold medal in the 1991 Pan Am Games, and represented the United States in the 1988 Olympics, where he was the youngest American, and the 1992 Games, where he was the team’s captain.
Minicucci broke the New York City PSAL all-around record as a high school freshman at Susan Wagner, then captured all six events the following year, before winning a Big 10 individual title and an NCAA team championship at Illinois.
Ben McNevich, Staten Island’s undefeated match-game champion for 12 straight years, rolled nine 300 games in his career, the last when he was 68 years old.
McNevich won a Professional Bowlers Association regional title, dozens of American Bowling Congress events, and was PBA Rookie of the Year at the age of 48.