Baseball
Dusty Rhodes
Before he was a World Series hero, Dusty Rhodes was a journeyman outfielder for the New York Giants, best known as a left-handed pinch-hitter and post-game partier. But in the 10th inning of the opening game of the 1954 Series, Rhodes hit a walk-off, three-run homer to beat the American League champion Cleveland Indians, winners of a then-record 111 regular-season games. The next day, he delivered all the offense the Giants needed with a run-scoring (Read more...)
Sonny Ruberto
John “Sonny” Ruberto, a two-time all-city catcher at Curtis High School, made it to the major leagues as a player with the 1969 Padres and 1972 Reds, and as a coach with the 1977 and 1978 Cardinals. In between, he played all nine positions in a minor-league game; was a manager at 24; threw out 22 consecutive baserunners; and accounted for all three outs in an inning, throwing out two runners and picking the third (Read more...)
Rich Scheid
Rich Scheid pitched 13 complete games and won 21 at Seton Hall, where he was a two-time All-Big East pitcher and New Jersey Pitcher of the Year, and remains among the all-time school leaders in a half-dozen pitching categories. A second-round draft choice of the New York Yankees, Scheid was 1-4 in 21 big-league games as a reliever with the Houston Astros and Miami Marlins, and 59-47 over parts of 10 minor league seasons. He (Read more...)
Duane Singleton
The Island has had other high school athletes who excelled in baseball and basketball, but only one, Duane Singleton, who scored 1,000 points on the hardwood, and then became a Major League centerfielder. Drafted straight out of McKee/Staten Island Tech by the Milwaukee Brewers in the fifth round of the 1992 amateur draft, when he was 17, Singleton played 33 big-league games with the Brewers and the Detroit Tigers when he was still a teenager. (Read more...)
Bob Steele
Bob Steele was a mentor and role model to generations of athletes in more than a half-century as a coach and athletic director at McKee High School and Staten Island Tech, and as an assistant at the College of Staten Island. A three-time Daily News Coach of the Year, Steele won three Staten Island High School League titles in 15 seasons as the basketball coach at McKee, and an Island PSAL title in 41 seasons (Read more...)