Bill Batewell, one of the winningest coaches in Long Island baseball history, has passed away. He was 79.

Batewell, who recorded 452 wins at Sachem and more than 500 in his career which extended to Bellport, battled cancer and COVID-19 during the last year of his life.

His Sachem teams in 1979 and 1987 won Suffolk County championships and he coached two players – Neal Heaton and Mike Parisi – who played Major League Baseball, and another dozen who played professionally.

Influential as a social studies teacher, Batewell was the varsity baseball head coach at Sachem from 1975 through 2004, and was a JV head football coach for decades as well.

He was inducted to the Suffolk Sports Hall of Fame in 2010 and Sachem Athletic Hall of Fame in 2016.