(Photo Credit: Axcess Baseball)
Recap:
- Malandro grew up in Brooklyn during the 1950s as a diehard Brooklyn Dodgers fan. His family moved to Valley Stream during his adolescence which is where he attended high school.
- He was a Nassau County Cop, and he retired in 1991.
- He became aware of Holy Trinity job opening by a newspaper ad and became the JV football coach first before taking over as baseball head coach in 1987.
- He used the same signs that St. Louis Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog used.
- In 1997 he led Holy Trinity to the first CHSAA title of his tenure. He followed that up with another title in 1998.
- He liked to schedule as many as 40 games per year, with many of the non-league games coming against top teams like Division, Clarke and Massapequa.
- In 2003, he had his first draft pick, Jonathan Kalkau. He was signed after hitting 3 HR and driving in 9 runs in a championship game.
- In 2006, they beat Massapequa in a scrimmage behind starting pitcher Keith Couch. It was the same year that Massapequa went undefeated at 26-0.
- Couch was a 2007 graduate who wound up getting drafted out of Adelphi in 2010. He says he really flourished after getting to Adelphi.
- He also had draft picks in 2010 and 2011 (Max Almonte and Alex Robinson).
- He wanted to call up Robinson as a freshman but waited until his sophomore year.
- Robinson was untouchable in 2011 when winning the Gatorade Player of the Year for NY.
- That team had 6 Div-I players on it including Chris Hardardt and Jack Parenty.
- He considered retiring following his 2012 championship but decided to stick around.
- Holy Trinity was the only team to defeat Chris Cappas in 2017, they won 2-1. They didn’t hit the ball well but executed with the little things.
- He is very confident in incumbent coach Dan Luisi, who he coached. Luisi proved that he earned the job by coaching at Stony Brook and in the Hamptons League.