About Inductee

The stock market crash of 1929, which ushered in the Great Depression, was still six months and two weeks away when Benjamin Benny Cavaliere was born on April 5, 1929, in Norristown, Pa. The tough times of the 1930s did not deter young Cavaliere from pursuing his interest in baseball, a sport for which he had a natural aptitude and which would eventually land him a spot in the Huntsville-Madison County Athletic Hall of Fame. My early athletic accomplishments would have to be attributed to the conditions and circumstances that existed back when I was a young boy, says Cavaliere. We had no baseball field or equipment back then and had to improvise and create places and equipment in order to play ball. Our athletic fields were a side street with not much traffic. Our baseball bat was a broom handle. Our ball was a 3-inch piece of thin wheel tubeless bicycle tire. Our gloves were our bare hands. By the time he reached high school, Cavaliere-by now playing on real fields with real equipment had become the captain and batting champion of his team, good enough athletically and academically to go on to play for legendary college baseball coach Jack Coombs at Duke University. At Duke, Cavaliere earned a B.A. degree in economics and won three letters in baseball, captured a batting title and played in the College World Series, and later player for the Raleigh Capitals of the Carolina League. While in the U.S. Army at Redstone Arsenal from 1953-54, he organized the posts first Army baseball, basketball, football and softball teams and helped develop and build facilities for each sport. He remained in Huntsville after his service duties, working in government procurement and contracting for the Army and for NASA from 1955-85. I attribute all my athletic prowess and baseball accomplishments to my college coach and mentor, Jack Coombs, says Cavaliere. He was one of the greatest coaches ever. While establishing his career in Huntsville in the 1950s, Cavaliere played for the Huntsville Parkers baseball team. In 1956, the Parkers won the state tournament. Cavaliere was named the Outstanding Infielder and was one of 16 players invited to represent Alabama in the National Baseball Congress World Series in Wichita. Benny and his wife Loretta have two daughters, Carol Madry and Linda Hall.