Hall of Fame
Sandy D. Spadafore ’75 – Class of 2000
Getting things done…
The hot stove league has a long season in Massena, New York. Big league dreams are molded as drifts of snow cover fields and spring’s promise seems an eternity away.
Such dreams were legitimate aspirations for a young man who was Holy Family’s Most Valuable Player and Sportsman of the Year in 1971. Years later, a teammate recalls a classy lefthander as “a magician on the mound…who was sneaky fast, had great control and could cut up opponents with a tough slider.”
He came to the Heights as a new coach, Dick Rockwell, was working to build a successful program. He left with 27 wins against only 10 losses, a career earned run average of 1.85 and ten shutouts. His pitching career put the Dolphins on the road to sustained excellence after earning their first NCAA Tournament bid in a decade.
Selected to the All-ECAC team in 1974, co-captain of the 1974-75 Dolphin squad, and the first Le Moyne hurler to record 20 and 25 career wins, he blazed a trail to the Heights that other North Country pitchers would soon follow.
After graduation, those snow-bound dreams led down a different path, to an Italian Major League team in Nettuno. Dan Guerrero, Director of Athletics at the University of California at Irvine, and a teammate at Nettuno recalls, “the opportunity of a lifetime…to experience the thrill of playing a game we loved for pay, before rabid fans, on a team that had won more championships than any other franchise.”
He arrived in Italy after graduating from Le Moyne, in the midst of a crucial mid-season series for Nettuno. After a transatlantic flight and a four hour drive he appeared in the locker room an hour before game time and pronounced himself ready to pitch. Teammate Guerrero recalls, “He proceeded to mesmerize the opponent, shutting them out for nine innings. He also hit a home run in his first at bat…about 450 feet from home plate.”
Whether it was heading to the mound and excelling when others would be exhausted; finding a better production process at General Motors to earn a Management Award; organizing a community-wide food drive or softball tournament; serving as president of the Softball Umpires Association; or acting as a spokesman for the American Cancer Society as the disease progressed in him, he quietly got things done.
The small group of Americans in the Italian league came from well-known programs: UCLA, Stanford, Arizona State. He proudly displayed his green and gold on every occasion possible. The Italians viewed Le Moyne College with as much distinction as any other. Their star, their hero, went to college at Le Moyne. That made it ‘big time’ for them.
Fellow softball umpire Rick Ahlfeld recalls that he “represented all that was right about Le Moyne College. He worked hard, played hard. But he always was trying to be sure things were done fairly and with dignity.”
The hot stove league in the North Country, baseball and Le Moyne could ask no more of its sons, and therefore
Sandy D. Spadafore ’75 belongs in the
Le Moyne College Athletic Hall of Fame
February 5, 2000
