In the spring of 2021 here, Gordon LeMatty is on the right, Westfield baseball coach Bob Brewster on the left and Union County baseball reporter JR Parachini is in the middle. The trio stand in front of the Gordon R. LeMatty Field at Union High School.
UNION, NJ — The impact Gordon Raymond LeMatty made on the young men he coached stretches from the township of Union all the way across the United States.
LeMatty, who was the first head baseball coach at Union High School, a tenure that began in the late 1950s and extended into the early 1990s, cherished every one of them.
His players cherished him back.
LeMatty, born May 15, 1933, in Newark, died on Friday, July 18, in Union, at the age of 92.
LeMatty was the head coach at Union from 1959 to 1991, and his 641 victories at that time was the most in New Jersey by far. He now ranks third in Union County behind Bob Brewster of Westfield High School at 655 and Ray Korn of Roselle Catholic and Elizabeth high schools at 651.
LeMatty guided the Farmers to a record of 641-272-4 that included numerous conference, county, Greater Newark Tournament, sectional and state championships. Union has only won the UCT once after his tenure, in 1993, and guided that year by second-year head coach Chet Czaplinski, who played for LeMatty before graduating from Union in 1967. Union’s first three head coaches after LeMatty all played for Gordon, including Czaplinski, 1976 graduate Mike Hamberg and 1989 grad Frank Napolitano.
More important than his outstanding won-loss record, however, LeMatty made a lot of friends along the way, with many of them in attendance on the Saturday morning in 2009 when the varsity baseball field was named after him.
Larry Kubin, UHS Class of 1977, and one of the greatest football players ever to come out of Union, was one of them. Kubin, who also played baseball at Union for LeMatty, played his college football at Penn State University and in the National Football League for the Washington Redskins.
“I had the privilege of playing for some great coaches like Joe Paterno at Penn State and Joe Gibbs with the Washington Redskins and I still enjoyed playing for Joe Bizzaro, who was the head football coach when I played at Union,” said Kubin, who just missed playing football at Union for Lou Rettino, whose tenure began in the fall of 1977.
As a sophomore at Union, Kubin was a member of the 1975 baseball team that was UCT and North 2, Group 4 champs.
“Gordy, I put up there as an influence factor as any one of those coaches I just mentioned,” Kubin said. “At this age and at this level, young people need coaches that are beyond just the wins and losses and really put their heart and soul into mentoring kids. Gordy did that beyond the wins. It so happened the recipe Gordy had was, obviously, good, hard baseball and he also made it fun.”
The 1975 squad was LeMatty’s highest winning percentage team at 28-3 (.903), with Kubin playing in the outfield on the junior varsity team that season and then coming up to varsity and pitching, going 9-0 on the mound there. Union won 25 games the year before, in 1974, when it won the Group 4 state championship game for the second time in three years, and then three years later, in 1977, the Farmers won 25 games again when Kubin was a senior. The 1984 team would tie the school record for wins in a season with a 28-5 mark.
LeMatty guided Union to 31 winning seasons and two .500 campaigns. The Farmers, during his tenure, never finished with a losing record.
The top of the varsity scoreboard reads: Gordon R. LeMatty Field. LeMatty’s middle name is Raymond, but he referred to the initial in his ceremony speech as the R. being for Ruth, the first name of his wife of 55 years.
“Looking at that scoreboard, I’m speechless,” LeMatty said that April day 16 years ago, long after everyone in attendance expected a lengthy acknowledgement of the gesture by LeMatty, and received one from him.
There to honor LeMatty were his family, former players and coaches, Union Board of Education members and, with microphone in hand, Chief School Administrator Theodore A. Jakubowski.
LeMatty thanked all for coming and was grateful that his name was now a part of Union athletics, the same way as such other names are, including Lake, Cooke, Rettino and his close friend, Jim Jeskey, who the varsity soccer field was named for the September before, after Jeskey served as Union’s head boys soccer coach from 1961 to 2007.
LeMatty played in a men’s baseball league until his late 70s and attended Union baseball games right up until a few years ago.
Among the lengthy list of players who went on to play professionally after playing for LeMatty includes Al Santorini, arguably the greatest pitcher to ever come out of the state of New Jersey, and Elliott Maddox, who played for both the Yankees and the Mets and in the 1976 World Series in right field for the Yankees.
File Photo
