Ronald Charles Cey is an American former third baseman in Major League Baseball who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers (1971-1982), Chicago Cubs (1983-1986) and Oakland Athletics (1987). Cey batted and threw right-handed. A popular player, he was nicknamed “The Penguin” for his slow waddling running gait by his then-minor league manager Tommy Lasorda.
Cey was born in Tacoma, Washington. A graduate of Mount Tahoma High School, he attended Washington State University. He also played college baseball for the Cougars in 1968.
With the Dodgers, third baseman Cey was part of an All-Star infield that included Steve Garvey (first baseman), Davey Lopes (second baseman) and Bill Russell (shortstop). This quartet was the most enduring infield in baseball history. The four infielders stayed together as the Dodgers’ starters for eight and a half years. Cey was one of the most productive and adept-fielding National League third basemen in the 1970s, but was overshadowed by Pete Rose and Mike Schmidt. In 1977, he helped the Dodgers to a fast start by batting .429 in April with a record-tying 11 home runs for the month and 29 RBI’s. The Dodgers won the Western Division title that season on their way to the National League pennant.
Cey would continue to have productive seasons with the Dodgers, helping them to pennants in 1978 and 1981. After the 1982 season, the Dodgers traded Cey to the Chicago Cubs for two minor leaguers so that Pedro Guerrero could move to third base and rookie Mike Marshall could get in the Dodgers’ outfield. Cey provided veteran leadership for the Cubs over four seasons and, in 1984, helped lead the Cubs to the National League East Division title, hitting 25 homers and driving in 97 runs, both team highs. Cey spent the final year of his career in 1987 as a part-time player with the Oakland A’s.
In a 17-season career, Cey was a .261 hitter with 316 home runs and 1139 RBI in 2073 games. He is also one of three Phis to win the Lou Gehrig Memorial Award.
Cey had a terrific 1981 World Series in which he helped spark the Dodgers to four straight victories after they had lost the first two games, including returning for the clinching Game 6 after having been being hit in the head by a Goose Gossage fastball during Game 5. Cey was named co-MVP along with Steve Yeager and Pedro Guerrero. He is still a part of the Dodgers’ organization and continues to make appearances on the team’s behalf.
Bill Chapin was named the senior vice president of business operations for the National Football League’s Kansas City Chiefs in 2011. Prior to this, Chapin was located in Seattle as the vice president of business development for the Major League Soccer’s Seattle Sounders FC and director of marketing and partnership development for the Sounders and the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks. In those positions he was gained experience in marketing management, including the establishment of the Seattle Sounders franchise in 2009.
Chapin’s also worked with the National Hockey League’s Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings, the Major League Baseball’s San Diego Padres, and the Los Angeles Clippers in the National Basketball League. He was a member of the management team during the construction of the popular STAPLES Center located in Los Angeles.
Chenery was responsible for dressing the Triple Crown Winner, Secratariat in Blue and White.
One of the founders of the New York Racing Association, Chenery made his home in the village of Pelham Manor, New York for nearly fifty years. However, he is best known for his 1936 purchase of The Meadow, an ancestral property in Caroline County near his boyhood home in Ashland, Virginia. It was there that he founded Meadow Stud stud which bred Thoroughbreds, and Meadow Stable under whose colors the horses ran. According to Alan Chenery, Jr., Christopher’s nephew, the Chenery brothers decided that the horses from Meadow Stables would wear the blue and white colors in honor of Phi Delta Theta Fraternity.
Mark Chipman is a Canadian hockey executive, businessman and lawyer. Chipman is best known as the chairman of True North Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Winnipeg Jets of the National Hockey League and the MTS Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He is also the team’s governor and sits on the National Hockey League Board of Governors.
John Barry Clemens is a former professional basketball player. The 6′ 6″ Clemens attended Xenia High School and Ohio Wesleyan University before being drafted by the NBA’s New York Knicks in the 1965 NBA Draft. He went on to have a productive 11-year career with five teams: New York Knicks, Chicago Bulls, Seattle SuperSonics, Cleveland Cavaliers and the Portland Trail Blazers. He retired in 1976 with career totals of 5,312 points and 2,532 rebounds.
In 2009, Clemens was inducted into the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame.
Ritter Collett was a sports editor and columnist for the Dayton Journal-Herald and Dayton Daily News for over fifty years. Collett, a native of Ironton, Ohio began his career in 1946 for the then-Dayton Journal. After the Journal merged with the Herald in 1948, Collett became the sports editor for the Journal-Herald until 1986, when the paper merged with the Dayton Daily News, and he became sports editor and columnist for that paper.
Collett, along with Bob Prince and Jim Enright created the Hutch Award in honor of Cincinnati Reds manager Fred Hutchinson, awarded by Major League Baseball to an active player who best exemplifies the fighting spirit and competitive desire to win. Collett, a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America since 1947, was awarded the J. G. Taylor Spink Award by the BBWAA in 1991.
Collett, along with his fellow Dayton Daily News writers Si Burick and Hal McCoy, is among the few writers from a paper in a city without a Major League Baseball team to be inducted in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Don Colo is a former American football defensive tackle who played nine seasons in the National Football League with the Baltimore Colts, Dallas Texans and Cleveland Browns. He was born in East Bridgewater, Massachusetts and is a veteran of World War II.
Phi Delta Theta Sports Hall of Fame Inductee
Billy Charles Coody is an American professional golfer, best known for winning the 1971 Masters Tournament. He made his pro debut in 1963.
Coody had three wins on the PGA Tour and three wins off Tour in his regular career. He played on the 1971 U.S. Ryder Cup team. Coody was known as one of the best iron players of his era.
As a senior, Coody played on the Senior PGA Tour (now called the Champions Tour), winning five times. Coody played his final Masters Tournament in 2006, then retired from active competition.
Coody was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 2000. A college golf tournament, the Charles Coody West Texas Intercollegiate, is named for him. He also lends his name to a charity event, the Charles Coody Classic.
It’s not often you find an inventor, industrialist and entrepreneur twice in one family. The Crosley brothers, Powel and Lewis, were responsible for many firsts in consumer products and broadcasting. Powel was the creative genius and Lewis had the practical know how to take his brother’s visions and make them reality. Powel’s two secrets of success were his ability to invent useful gadgets and the business sense of his brother Lewis M. Crosley. In 1920, Powel Crosley introduced the first low price radio for 20 dollars, becoming the largest radio manufacturer in the world. It earned Powel the reputation as the “Henry Ford of radios.” Powel then turned to broadcasting. Crosley Broadcasting Corporation was the most powerful station in the world at the time. That success led to the introduction of the first car radio. He also added refrigerators and other household appliances to his products.
Powel Crosley was also a sports fanatic. In 1934, In 1934, he purchased the Cincinnati Reds baseball team. On May 24, 1935, the first nighttime game was held between the Cincinnati Reds and the Philadelphia Phillies, under newly installed electric lights.
With the brothers’ many successes, they were determined to re-focus their efforts on a long standing desire to build an affordable automobile.In 1939, Powel introduced to the world the first small car. It was a two-door convertible that weighed under 1,000-pound and sold for 250 dollars.The vehicles were sold through independent appliance and department store. It did not achieve sales success, so in 1941 the body styles were expanded to include two- and four-passenger convertibles, a station wagon and trucks.After World War II ended the Crosley brothers attempted to build an automobile empire out of the Crosley name, but the demand for bigger cars were on the rise. By 1952, Powel and his brother Lewis had closed down their operation.
Jimmy Crum was known as the “Dean of Central Ohio sportscasters,” the “voice of the basketball Buckeyes” (1959-1979), and from 1968-1980 – with Phil Samp – as the “radio voice of the Cincinnati Bengals.” Jimmy worked as sports director/sports anchor at WCMH-TV for 41 years. He retired on December 31, 1993.
