Cianfrocco, Mortis headline inductees
Originally published July 25, 2002

From staff reports

ROME — Former major league baseball player Archi Cianfrocco and Rome Free Academy football and basketball legend Joe Mortis are two of the six 2002 inductees who will be honored during the 26th Annual Rome Sports Hall of Fame dinner at the Beeches Restaurant at 5:30 p.m. Sunday.

Hockey star Dave Adams, RFA’s record-setting goal scorer, golfer Vie Evans, former RFA athletic director and coach Fran Lisewski and longtime Black Knights coach Bob Ryan are this year’s other inductees.

Cianfrocco was an RFA and American Legion baseball standout who went on to star at Onondaga Community College and Purdue University. He was a fifth-round draft pick of the Montreal Expos in 1987 and played 500 major league games for the Expos and San Diego Padres.

Cianfrocco played five different positions for the Padres in 1995, and in ’96 he batted a career-high .281. He was a .241 career hitter in the majors, finishing with 34 homers and 185 RBIs. He started the 1999 season playing for the Seibu Lions in Japan, but that season was cut short by a knee injury and the Anaheim Angels waived him the following year.

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