June 28, 2011

George "Doc" Linnehan was well known in Levittown and in Long Island softball circles



By FRANK BARNING

Most of the boys who played sports in early Levittown shopped for their equipment at George "Doc" Linnehan's County Sports Center store. First it was located at the North Village Green and later on Division Avenue, a few blocks north of the high school.

Just imagine how many wiseguy kids greeted Linnehan with "What's up Doc?"

As Mark Rotker, class of 1968, recently reminded me, Division Avenue High athletes bought their varsity jackets and lettermen sweaters from Doc. Some of us knew, but not many, that he was a highly regarded softball coach, both fast and slow pitch.

Softball was huge on Long Island back then with well attended tournaments held at the Jones Beach Stadium and other venues in Nassau and Queens Counties. I worked at Jones Beach in the late 1950s and early 1960s and remember some of those games quite well. Grumman had a great team, as did DeJur Camera, Musicaro's Restaurant as well as Doc's Meenan Oilers and later County Sports.

Newsday and the Long Island Press gave softball considerable coverage so those teams became well known to local sports fans as did the top players such as pitchers Roy Stephenson (also seen as Stevenson), Ollie Johnson, Dick Surhoff and Jerry Fleming.

Surhoff, a mountain of a man who drank beer in the dugout, had played briefly for the New York Knicks during the 1952-53 season. His sons B.J. and Rich were major league baseball players. Another son, Jeff Albert, was a pitcher at C.W. Post College and in the minor leagues. I digress on Surhoff because Jeff Albert and his mother were friends of the Barnings.

In 1977, Doc was inducted into the National Softball Hall of Fame.

FROM THE HALL OF FAME WEBSITE

The only manager to have teams in the finals of the Men’s Major Slow Pitch and Men’s Major Fast Pitch National Championships, Linnehan started managing in 1956 and led the Meenan Oilers to a fourth place finish in the Men’s Fast Pitch National Tourney. In 1964, he led Local 138 of Huntington to a second place finish.

Switching to slow pitch in 1966, he led County Sports of Levittown to the national title in 1968 after finishing second in 1966 and third in 1967. His teams had a record of 55-23 in ASA national championship play. In 1965, he managed the Fast Pitch All-Stars and in 1968 managed the Slow Pitch All-Stars.

A native of Queens, Linnehan grew up in Jamaica, playing baseball in the Queens Alliance Baseball League in the 1930s before attending Palmer Chiropractic College in Iowa. After opening his County Sports Center, he continued his chiropractic practice at night for several years and began playing and managing softball teams. He died in 1990 at age 74 and was one of the most respected and well-liked people in the sport during his career. He also is a member of the Long Island ASA Hall of Fame.

49 comments:

Marilyn Monsrud Frese said...

Wow- so much I didn't know. I remember Celeste, his daughter. They were a great family. Didn't they used to live in the first house next to DAHS? I remember them there. Easy commute to school and work! DAHS had the small apartment complex at one end (it's still there! Linda Kenley '62 used to live there) and the Linnehan's house at the other end.

Anonymous said...

My first mitt was purchased at the North Green County Sports..a Wes Westrum model. Also, one of the best Levittown atheletes played for Doc...Bobby Lombardi. It was Linda Kaiser who lived in the apartments. Her parents owned Wilfred's where we had a couple of great parties.

Jack Jacobsen

Anonymous said...

The consumate "professional" as an amateur softball coach ... never saw Doc flustered or angry. I played with my '63 classmate Stan Pesner's Restful Furniture Eagles in the Nassau County A League at Cantiague Park in '67 & '68. We squared off many times with Doc's County Sports team (won once, I think when Jim Galoway and some of the heavy hitters were no-shows ... lol) and he helped get me a job announcing the World Series of ASA Softball held on LI in September '68. I worked at McLaren Field (Loring Road Field) which was a satellite site for some of the early round games. Doc's team wound up winning the whole tournament and were World Champs in '68. Division's Bobby Lombardi and Richie Liguori (also '63) played for that team, though not sure if Richie was on the tournament team that year. (Bet he'll write a comment below and tell us ... lol.)

Doc's partner (a very silent one) in his County Sports business was Marius Russo, who I believe played for the Yankees. I think the store wound up on Hempstead Turnpike just west of Mays Dep't Store after moving from Division Ave. George Linnehan (Jr.?? -- maybe '65) was a very funny, cool kid who got the best traits of his dad.

Doc was really a wonderful guy -- never heard anyone say a bad word about him.

Jim Ayres '63

Anonymous said...

George Kurth, early Levittowner...

My universe must have been smaller than I thought---my father played third base for Meenan (and Doc) for about 10 years--I remember going to Jones Beach on a regular basis for the games---one night they were short one man and somehow managed to insert me in left field.....I think I was 15 at the time. The first ball hit to me was, in hard ball, a routine base hit. Not knowing how fast the game was, I went down on one knee picked the ball up to "toss" it into second. When I looked up the runner was already rounding second heading for third. I had a much greater respect for "softball" after that. Did as poorly at the plate 3x--K; K again although I did foul one off; popped out to the first baseman. So as not to be discouraged for the rest of my life, I viewed it as improvement with each at bat.

I also ran (only one there) County Sports Center at the North Green for 2 years during Xmas week while I was a Jr and Sr in high school. Doc and his wife would go to see family during the holidays and my dad and him were friends, so I got the job.

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