One of Liverpool’s most long-lived Boys of Summer drifted off into the cornfield beyond left field on Sept. 24.
John “Babe” Testone, who played professional baseball 70 years ago and went on to pitch for the Le Moyne Dolphins before coaching at Christian Brothers Academy, died suddenly last month at St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center, on Syracuse’s North Side. Babe was 87 years old.
As published on the Maurer Funeral Home website, Testone’s obituary is aptly adorned with a photo of a baseball in the grass and a panoramic view of a carefully groomed infield diamond.
After abandoning his major-league dreams in the late 1940s, Testone earned an accounting degree at Le Moyne and worked as a CPA and partner with Deloitte, Haskins & Sells for many years in Syracuse. Later he opened an office at 600 Oswego St., here in the village, at the former site of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church.
But when he was a teenager, Babe pursued his first love, baseball. Soon after graduating from Assumption High School at the age of 17, he signed his first pro baseball contract and played several seasons in the New York Yankees’ and Baltimore Orioles’ minor league systems.
A gifted right-handed pitcher, Babe posted a record of two wins and zero losses for the 1946 Easton (Maryland) Yankees in the Class-D Eastern Shore League. He was listed on the 1947 roster of the Geneva Redbirds in the Border League, but no statistics survive from that Class C season played so many years ago.
At age 21, Testone became a member of the first-ever graduating class from Le Moyne College in 1951. By the end of that decade, Testone was hired to coach baseball at CBA in DeWitt, and in 1961 he used his accounting skills to help bring back the Syracuse Chiefs to MacArthur Stadium.
Testone’s great friend, Tony Kreuzer, says he “shall always value my many days of working with Babe as we saw to Syracuse Chiefs financial well-being. He was so, so fine a gentleman.”
Kreuzer, who was national sales manager for the Muench-Kreuzer Candle Company, was an integral part of the Chiefs’ return to Syracuse in 1961, four years after the club had folded in 1957. Testone advised Kreuzer who served as the first treasurer of the Community Baseball Club of Syracuse.
A resident of Liverpool since 1962, Testone was an active parishioner and founding trustee of Christ the King Church in Bayberry. In Babe’s memory, the family requests that donations be made to the Christ of King Church Repair and Renovation Fund.
Cassidy’s masterstroke
Better news for another of Liverpool’s longtime Boys of Summer. Mike Cassidy scored a rare hole-in-one on Sept. 23, at the Olde Oak Golf Club in Kirkville.
When Cassidy teed up at hole number 7, he drove the ball 215 feet until it rolled across the green to the flag and suddenly dropped out of sight. Cassidy’s single masterstroke was witnessed by fellow golfer Mike Palladino.
By the way, Cassidy is the father of Scott Cassidy, the former major-league pitcher who lives in Liverpool and now coaches the Le Moyne Dolphins nine.
Congratulations, Mike!
Awesome ‘Elephant Man’
Korrie Taylor, who grew up in Liverpool as Korrie Strodel, plays a couple of small roles in “The Elephant Man,” running through Oct. 8, at the First Presbyterian Education Center, 64 Oswego St., in Baldwinsville. Korrie and her husband, Josh Taylor, co-produced the unusual melodrama for Baldwinsville Theatre Guild.
The play is based on the real life of John Merrick, a Victorian Era British bloke suffering from a horrifying, rare skin-and-bone disorder. In the title role, actor Alan Stillman embodies the deformed man without a hint of prosthetic makeup. Instead he twists his limbs and contorts his mouth, adopting distorted physical poses, which must leave him sore after every show.
Truly awe-inspiring, “The Elephant Man,” directed by William Edward White, concludes its run in B’ville, at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Oct. 7-8. Tickets cost $20; 877-8465; baldwinsvilletheatreguild.org.
Billionaires at Blue Spruce
Gotta give credit to the Blue Spruce Lounge for its ongoing commitment to live music.
The newly renovated restaurant attached to the Maplewood Extended Stay & Suites, at 400 Seventh North St., will present The Billionaires from 8 p.m. to midnight, on Friday, Oct. 7, featuring frontwoman Anna Marie White and guitarist Robbie Hoston.
On Saturday, Oct. 8, Grupo Pagan will perform its danceable mix of Latin rhythms and rockin’ blues for the Blue Spruce crowd.
The lounge’s menu offers upscale comfort foods such as an amazing tomahawk pork chop double-stuffed with cornbread, yellow raisins, hot peppers, onion, celery and shallots and served with garlic mashed potatoes.
Admission is free at the Blue Spruce Lounge, and there’s plenty of free parking; bluesprucelounge.com; 373-0833.
The columnist can be contacted at [email protected].
