Bill Batewell
Bellport Takes The Field With Heavy Hearts in 2021
There hasn’t been many coaches as successful as Bill Batewell and the list of people that are as respected as him is even shorter. The legendary coached passed away in January. He won over 500 game during his storied career and led Sachem to County Titles in 1979 and 1987. Over 20 of his former players went on to become head coaches. His longtime assistant, Joe Murphy, is now the head coach of Bellport, the position Batewell held since 2008. Murphy noted that when Sachem chose to go in another direction in 2005, Batewell wasn’t ready to give up coaching and decided to take over the Bellport program since he lived in the area and wanted to take on the challenge of turning around a program that had one six games in four years. “Out of all the great coaches, there’s ve...
Sachem North Leaning on Leadership To Prepare for Upcoming Season
Brandon O’Neill (Sachem North 2023) with a max exit velo of 86.3 pic.twitter.com/9cvT7uFRfK — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) November 8, 2020 We’ve looked at many unique storylines for this upcoming season such as teams with no returning varsity experience, or teams that haven’t been able to gather in-person yet and even teams that are missing half their players to other sports. Sachem North is the first team we’ve previewed that is running into the issue of their coaching staff being multi-sport coaches. Of the four coaches at the varsity level, all are still in their Spring I seasons – including head coach Tom Gambino who is an assistant for the varsity football team. This has certainly impacted the amount of preparation that they have been able to put...
Legendary Coach Bill Batewell Passes Away At Age 79
(Photo Credit: The Sachem Report) When a legendary member of the Long Island baseball community bases, we mourn together. One of the most successful and longest-tenured coaches on Long Island, Bill Batewell, passed away this week at the age of 79. He was currently the head coach of Bellport HS, but made his impact on the Sachem community. He began his career as a JV coach in 1970 and became the varsity coach in 1975 and held that position until 2004. During that time, he led Sachem to 452 wins and county titles in 1979 and 1987, which remained the only two in school history until 2011. During his tenure with Sachem, Neal Heaton and Mike Parisi went on to become big leaguers. Additionally, more than 20 of his former players went on to become head coaches. This may be even more impressive th...
Bellport Looks To Build For Future
It was a tumultuous 2019 season for Bellport. They fell to 4-11 in league play and were without legendary head coach Bill Batewell, who was on medical leave. In his absence, longtime assistant Joe Murphy was at the helm. He has been with Batewell for 41 seasons beginning in 1979 as a volunteer coach on JV level at Sachem, then as the 8th grade coach in 1980, freshman team in 1981 and 1982, JV for 15 years and then varsity assistant since then. He noted that they had some bad luck, losing three one-run ballgames including two to League Champ West Islip by the scores of 1-0. “We were in a lot of games, we pitched well we just did not hit well,” he said, adding that the team batting average was under .200. They had one All-County player and that was Andrew Veit, who is currently p...
A Young Bellport Team Takes the Field Without Coach Batewell in 2019
Here’s the first of two grand slams by Bellport senior Anthony Jacabacci today pic.twitter.com/QYOBiWbesj — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) May 4, 2018 When Bill Batewell took over as Head Coach of Bellport 11 years ago, he was stepping into a program that had not done much winning. Known for their powerhouse football program that has won several Long Island Championship teams, the baseball team often had 11 or 12 players try out for the team. It took a few years, but he led them to their first League 5 title in 51 years in 2017. “There’s not many people that would’ve had the patience to turn around this program,” said his long-time assistant Joe Murphy, who has been with him since 1978. Murphy is now the interim coach after Coach Batewell was forced to t...
