By Mitch Abramson
The sweltering heat presented the perfect excuse to remain home, but 44 former players, including the entire team from 1977, attended the reunion, which had been in the works for years but lacked a unifying force to attract the alumni until Minaya came on board.”I had to come back,” he said in between innings. “This is my school. This is the place that made me into the person I am now. When they asked me if I would come, I said, whatever you need, I will do. Just let me know when and where.”Minaya came to the reunion bearing gifts. He brought a signed Pedro Martinez jersey and hats with signatures from David Wright and Cliff Floyd and a signed bat by Kaz Matsui that were raffled off. The reunion helped raise money for a current student to help pay for college. The oldest alumni, Jack Stoddard who graduated in 1969, bought 100 tickets to the Mets game for Newtown students. Stoddard runs a communications company called Mitel, and this year he donated a state of the art techno-lab to the school. He has fond memories of Newtown, where as a student, he met his wife while he was walking to school. She went to a school nearby and they would invariably cross paths every morning.Minaya was an all-city catcher for four years at Newtown and was drafted by the Oakland A's. He played in the minor leagues with future major-leaguers Harold Reynolds and Bayside native Dave Valle and was reputed to have discovered Sammy Sosa as a scout for the Texas Rangers. Warren Albert, Minaya's former baseball coach at Newtown was there Saturday and he said that Minaya, 46, skipped college to buy his father a house in the Dominican Republic.”I was praying for him all these years,” Albert said. “I was always afraid that the powers-that-be wouldn't give a Latino a chance, but he persevered, and he made it. He's a real class act. I wanted him to go to college, but he had to do what he had to do for his family.”Hours before Minaya arrived at Shea Stadium to watch the Mets play Anaheim that night, Minaya, who grew up in Corona and graduated in 1978, was playing center field in a softball game. The second game of the doubleheader pitted the first game's winners against Newtown's current varsity, and the Pioneers, coached by varsity manager Neil Rosenblatt, barely held off the alumni to win 9-8 in 10 innings.The reunion was the brain child of Peggy and Jose Musa and Al Pedraga, all former students who were searching for a way to convince alumni to come back to the school. They agreed that bringing Minaya on board was the best way to galvanize a group that had been slow to gather in the past.The school hosted a small reunion last November at a restaurant in Astoria, but the trio had more ambitious plans this year.Peggy e-mailed Minaya when he was the GM of the Montreal Expos and within days, his assistant phoned her back. The only question was finding a date that fit into Minaya's hectic schedule. When he was hired by the Mets this season a date was found and soon their phones were ringing off the hook with requests from alumni to attend.”We were so excited when we knew we were coming,” Musa said. “All the guys were calling to see if it was really true. When they found out that he was coming, most of them answered 'yes' that they wanted to come. He's so down to earth. Everyone treats him like a regular guy. It was great.”Reach reporter Mitch Abramson by E-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300 Ext. 130.
