Happy Birthday, Neal Heaton!

Neal Heaton's rookie card from the 1984 Donruss set.
Neal Heaton’s rookie card from the 1984 Donruss set.

Sachem alum and former big league pitcher Neal Heaton turned 53 years old on Sunday, March 3. Happy Birthday, Neal!

Heaton graduated from Sachem in 1979 and was an integral part of Sachem’s 1977 and 1978 Suffolk County champion football teams and 1979 Suffolk County champion baseball team.

Appearing in more than 380 games for seven major league teams across 12 seasons, Heaton is the first of two Sachem alums to have played in the majors. The other is Mike Parisi (Class of ’01).

One Brewers blog actually took time to wish Heaton a happy birthday today as well. He only appeared in one game and pitched one inning for the Brewers in 1992 towards the end of his career.

In 1991, Heaton, who is one of the inaugural inductees of Sachem’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2003, became the second athlete in Sachem history to have his number retired (Jeff Ruland was first) and he’s currently the only former baseball player with that honor. His number was 16.

-Words by Chris R. Vaccaro