June 16, 2008

If you knew Cornelius Francis "Con" Dempsey, even during the last years before the illness that led to his death in 2006, you would refuse to believe that he was unable to make the Sequoia High School baseball team until the final few weeks of his senior season.

Dempsey, who will be enshrined in the San Mateo County Sports Hall of Fame at the 20th annual banquet June 19 at the San Mateo Elks Club, was a big man standing 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighing about 200 pounds during his playing days. He had the sloping shoulders, long arms and massive hands of an overpowering pitcher.

Dempsey could bring it. He won 49 games for the San Francisco Seals between 1948 and 1951, when the Pacific Coast League was the whole baseball show in the Bay Area, and Seals Stadium at 16th and Bryant streets reigned as Mecca and nirvana for the city's hard-core fans.

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