Michael Santoro

Santoro, Michael John Age 85, of Las Vegas, Nevada, formerly of Bloomington, Minnesota, passed away peacefully surrounded by family on January 28th, 2017. 

Preceded in death by father John, mother Grace, sister Lucia and grandson Matthew. Survived by wife of 62 years, Barbara; daughter Nanci McConnell and daughter Jennifer (Kevin) Rotty; 6 grandchildren and 7 great-grand children; many other relatives and friends. 

Michael played baseball for the United States Army and pitched the Army to the championships in 1953. He met the love of his life, Barbara, playing professional baseball for both the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. Michael was an educator and principal in the Bloomington school district for over 30 years. Memorial service will be held at a later date at The Church of the Risen Savior, Burnsville, Minnesota.

(The following was provided by John Hall, formerly of Carthage, who writes about players who played in the old KOM League, in his latest Flash Report)

In reading the obituary one might conclude Santoro was born in Minnesota but he was born in Chicago on April 1, 1931 to John F. and Grace Provenza-Santoro. By the time Mike was nine years of age he was living with his divorced mother, a beauty shop operator, and sister Lucille on Huron Street in Chicago.

Mike’s paternal grandfather, Vito, was from Bari, Italy having been born there in 1877. I could dwell a long time on the Santoro/Provenza family but I suspect I’ve already shared more genealogy than most of the readership would care to know.

Mike Santoro pitched at Joplin, Missouri of the Western Association in both 1951 and 1952. A large number of box scores and sports columns by Porter Wittich, of the Joplin Globe, told of the exploits of the young left hander pitcher. Just prior to the start of the 1952 season Wittich mentioned that although Santoro threw left handed he bowled righthanded and carried a 179 average in a Chicago bowling league during the off-season.