Sometimes the memory of what happened is so vivid that it could have happened five minutes ago.
A line drive to left center field, like a low-flying rocket, until it splashed into the Hudson River.
An early version of the McCovey Cove shot. However, the location was Haberstro instead of San Francisco, and it was toward the center left instead of toward the right.
And memories included striking out future major leaguer Walt Weiss almost exclusively for Weiss in front of a crowd of college and pro scouts when he was 14 years old.
Or the satisfaction of watching kids pull together and finally win a state cross country title after 25 years of coaching and a year after having to settle for second place in the state.
Or the patchwork image in your mind where softball is played non-stop behind the bar every weeknight and all day Sunday. And fast forward to decades later, at the age of 60, winning his last softball championship and winning a 35+ fastpitch softball league.
These and many more will be talked about, laughed at, and discussed this weekend as Rockland County sports are celebrated in four large events over two days at the Crowne Plaza on the Suffern/Mahwah Line in New Jersey. It will probably be reheated.
The brainchild of former Spring Valley High School and Rockland Community College baseball star Andre Chiavelli, the weekend unofficially begins Friday at 7 p.m. with a casual gathering at the Crowne Plaza bar where everyone is welcome.
Already, 150 people from various fields and eras of Rockland sports have committed to participate.
Four official events are scheduled for Saturday and Sunday afternoons and evenings.
Tickets will be sold on the day of the event, but nearly 1,000 tickets have already been sold.
The celebration will include the reopening of the dormant Spring Valley High School Sports Hall of Fame, which will feature multiple inductees from multiple sports.That event will be held Saturday from 3 to 7 p.m.
That night, from 8 p.m. to midnight, a celebration will be held to celebrate everyone who has ever coached in Rockland County, and 50 coaches will be selected for special recognition.
As part of the Coaches Celebration, 2023 Ramapo High School graduate Dimitri Pierre will be awarded a college scholarship. Dimitri Pierre overcame stage 4 cancer and wrestled as a senior on the East Ramapo team last winter.
The next day, the Ramapo High School Sports Hall of Fame will celebrate the induction of new members.It will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Then, from 6 to 10 p.m., the Rockland Softball Hall of Fame will induct everyone from coaches to high school and college stars to players who excelled at the recreational level.
The latter includes people like 65-year-old Ed Hardemian. He coached and played on multiple high-level recreational teams during a career that began as a player in 1979, winning his last championship as both manager and catcher five years ago. (At least as a player-manager, he is now the league commissioner) concluded that a return like Roger Clemens, Michael Jordan, or Tom Brady is not possible in 2022.
Mr. Hardemian will be officially appointed due to his business success.
As of Wednesday night, 325 people had purchased $20-per-person tickets to the Coaches Salute (which includes pizza and beer and a cash bar), which included speeches by two former local high school stars. will be included. He has a career in professional sports.
One is Tony DeFrancesco, a Suffern High School graduate, former Houston Astros manager, and coach for the Oakland Athletics and New York Mets.
Another is Blaise Winter, a Tappan Zee High School and Syracuse University graduate who played for multiple NFL teams over an 11-year period, most notably with the Indianapolis Colts and Green Bay Packers, where he was drafted in 1984.
Other events, while not as large, also draw large numbers of participants, even though tickets, including a full meal, cost $110. (Both locations have cash bars.)
Registration for both the Softball and Ramapo Hall tournaments was up to 180, while Spring Volleyball’s enrollment was up to 160, Chiavelli reported Wednesday night, and he expects enrollment to increase for all four tournaments. He said that
The crowded weekend is the result of a response to Chiavelli creating several Facebook pages several years ago as a site to remember Rockland sports with throwback blurbs, videos and photos.
He expected a positive response to the page, but not the thousands of posts that followed, most of them on the Facebook page Rockland Greatest Group. Ta.
That enthusiasm sparked thoughts that led to this weekend.
“There were so many events that I thought it was a pretty high probability,” said Chiavelli, who owns a consulting and sports memorabilia business.
“It just exploded into such a big thing. It’s just huge,” he said of the weekend. “It’s all about reunion, about bringing people back together.”
Among the coaches being honored is Joe Biddy, who ended his 56-year tenure as track and field and cross country coach last spring.
Biddy, 81, began his coaching career one year at New Rochelle High School, spent 50 years at Suffern High School and spent the last five years at St. Thomas Aquinas College in Rockland.
Biddy said he has a “special affinity for cross country” and considers it “the purest sport for hard workers” and boasts 762 championships, including state. He is the winningest male high school cross country coach in New York State. Championship.
Looking back on teaching, he said, “It was just so much fun. I just loved doing it.”
“Kids, they’re so easy to handle. If they believe in you, they’ll run through walls,” he said.
And in successful teams, children almost always believe in each other.
David Noriega, along with his teammates for the 1983 Tigers, who won both the then-Public School Athletic League title and the Section 9 championship for all Rockland high schools, played Spring Valley sports. He is scheduled to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. , one of his teammates will also be inducted individually and will also give an introductory speech.
That’s Pete Capello, the author of the unforgettable drive to the Hudson River and the three-run shot that sealed Rockland’s title with a 10-8 victory over North Rockland.
Noriega, who was second at the time, said he wouldn’t have won this weekend’s sectional title or been inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame if it weren’t for that.
Noriega, who started and started on Spring Valley’s varsity team as a freshman, was a junior in Capello’s last title-winning year at the school.
Noriega was a very good player, starting in both championship games that year and winning. He went on to play college ball at Rockland Community College, Wagner College, and Dominican College, earning All-American honors one year as a first baseman.
But he wasn’t in the same stratosphere as Capello, he claims, and Capello had almost the same cannon arm as Weiss, a near-perfect glove, and a bigger bat, but just couldn’t match Weiss’ speed. It is said that
Capello continued to play on scholarship at Pace University, where he was drafted in 2014.th 1986 game against the Kansas City Royals. He played four years in the minor leagues, reaching Double-A before an injury ended his career.
“He was one of the best shortstops I’ve ever seen, probably the best in Spring Valley history, and probably one of the best shortstops in Rockland County history.” Noriega said. . One place.
Noriega, of course, was a 14-year-old freshman, and although Suffern won that game, he at least recorded a moral victory of sorts by not allowing Weiss a hit and striking out one.
Capello had two hits in that game, Noriega recalled.
Noriega said in his 14-year-old mind that Capello gave him the win over a future Major League All-Star shortstop and future MLB manager, but now he’s giving Weiss his due as well.
“Walt Weiss was smooth. He was great. He was lightning fast,” he said.
Hardemian also played baseball, graduated from Spring Valley in 1976, and transitioned to softball in 1979.
But it’s his ability to manage talent that is why he will be praised this weekend.
While some may dismiss recreational softball as beer league fun where as many non-athletes play as real athletes, the kind of softball Helmedien has played and managed for decades. was much different.
But the softball that was played in Rockland for many years was different.
He was the king of summer.
He and Chiavelli (himself a Spring Valley baseball player and 1978 graduate) both recalled to the Journal News that they always had more influence on softball than the New York Yankees.
This was not only the pre-Jeter era of the Yankees, but also the era when the grounds sadly lost out to condominiums that housed hundreds of games and thousands of players each summer.
It was located behind the defunct Deer Head Tavern in West Nyack. Not only were high-level, high-speed games held every night and all day on Sundays, but an 80-team tournament was held each summer.
Hermedian, who played in the tournament and also coached the team, noted that while this wasn’t a windmill pitch, the hurler was still a fireball.
They may not be listed on IRS forms, but some of the valuable pitchers who played in the league weren’t technically amateurs.
“There were rumors that there were pitchers who were getting paid. I’m sure the rumors are true,” he said, adding that some of these pitchers ended up being coached by him and played in other leagues. He pointed out that he admitted that he transferred to the team and received personal compensation.
In his youth, Elmedian sometimes played in five leagues at once.
Softball was oxygen for many. And there was no shortage of talent.
Hermedian has won countless championships, but especially cherishes the ones he won in recent years.
His Pearl River Saloon team won the Rockland Senior League (35+) five years in a row from 2009 to 2013, but then two of his pitchers were too good and were suspended. received.
However, in 2018, he showed “really good pitching” instead of the phenomenal pitching he had in the past, and the team won once again with him at bat and, of course, as manager.
“This is the happiest (of all the championships),” he said.
Hermedians will no doubt talk about that game, and the big hits and big catches in other games, and the fireballs that go unstruck on induction night.
And like many who have probably registered to attend one or more events, he’s most looking forward to seeing each other again.
“It’s very special to me,” he said of the event. “I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of the players. There were a lot of things I haven’t seen in years.”
2023 Rockland Softball Hall of Fame Inductees
Manager Ed Hardemian. Clarkstown North/Seton Hall University pitcher Daniel DeStasso;; North Rockland/St. Thomas Aquinas pitcher Jackie DiNuzzo; catcher Don Fortino. infielder Steve Rosher; pitcher Katie O’Flynn of Pearl River/Oneonta, N.Y.; 1983-1984 North Rockland Girls Softball Team. Riverside Cafe Team. catcher Bob Lamundo; Outfielder Billy Seymour. Infielder Don Toto. Pearl River High/St. Thomas Aquinas pitcher Allison Vickers and the family of the late Bob Tortorello will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award in his honor.
Ramapo Sports Hall of Fame 2023 Inductees
the late Chuck Scarpulla (Special Dedication Award); Eric Bergstol, basketball. Coach Fred Bloom and the 1978 baseball team. Juliet Brown, Truck. Magic Celestine, Soccer. Alcohol, professional boxing. Calvin Croslin, truck. Mike Lakes, football. 1984 Men’s Basketball Team. Tony Marciano, wrestling. Ray Melendez, baseball. Jeff Nichols, basketball, football, track and field. Coach Gary Schoonmaker. Dawn Sugrue played basketball, and the late Bob Tortorello played baseball.
Local sports leader passes away:Former Sleepy Hollow, Ramapo AD and Pearl River star Chuck Scarpulla pays tribute
2023 Spring Valley Sports Hall of Fame Inductees
Jim Ashcroft, Athlete and Coach (Lifetime Achievement Award); 1983 Baseball Team. Enedi Basquiat, basketball. Percy Boykin and the 1989 Football Team. Pete Capello, baseball. Gardy Charles, basketball. Andrew Delva Sr. (Victory Coaching Award); Chris DeMaria, Sports Medicine. Skip Feinberg, football, basketball, and baseball. Bobby Greenberg, soccer. Silesha Johnson, Vincent Jordan, Soccer. Tracking; Coach Mark Cutts. Brian Lehrer, soccer. Rick Sartor, football. Timmy Thompson in football and Wendy Williams in basketball.
Nancy Hagerty covers cross country, track and field, field hockey, skiing, ice hockey, basketball, women’s lacrosse and other sporting events for The Journal News/lohud. Follow her on Twitter @HaggertyNancy.
