A number of professional athletes have lived in Mamaroneck and Larchmont. Below, read about one homegrown World Series hero, Scott Leius, Mamaroneck HIgh School class of 1983, and Lou Gehrig, New York Yankees’ “Iron Man,” who lived in Larchmont during a tragic turning point in his life.

More Mamaroneck and Larchmont notables: Read the other parts of the series

This is one of a series of pages on notable residents of Mamaroneck and Larchmont.

Here are the other parts. Tap the links to go to those pages:

Scott Leius: Ex-Mamaroneck High star hit World Series game-winning homer

Scott Leius (born 1965) earned All-County honors in baseball and football at Mamaroneck High School, then became a World Series hero with a pivotal homer for the Minnesota Twins.

In the 1991 World Series, he batted .357 and, leading off in the eighth inning, hit the game-winning home run off Tom Glavine in Games 2 as the Twins defeated the Atlanta Braves 3-2. The Twins went on to take the Series 4-3. Mamaroneck Village honored Leius after the Series.

Watch below: Scott Leius hits game-winning homer off Atlanta’s Tom Glavine in Game 2 of the 1991 World Series.

After graduating from Mamaroneck in 1983, Leius has played shortstop for Concordia College in Bronxville, then was drafted in 1986 by the Twins.

A third baseman mainly, he spent nine season in the major leagues with the Twins (6 seasons), Cleveland (1), and Kansas City (2) between 1990 and 1999.

Sources:

  • "Concordia's Leius drafted by Twins," The Daily Times, June 9, 1986.

  • "A hometown homer: Mamaroneck's Leius lifts Twins to 3-2 Series win," The Daily Times, Oct. 21, 1991

  • 'Village plans to tip cap to hero of World Series," The Daily Times, Nov. 24, 1991.

  • Scott Leius' major league statistics: Baseball-reference.com.

  • Mamaroneck High School class of 1983, The Daily Times, June 14, 1983.

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Billy Van Heusen: Mamaroneck High star played 9 seasons for NFL's Denver Broncos

Billy Van Heusen (b. 1946), a standout high school and professional athlete whose excellence earrned him induction into the Westchester County Sports Hall of Fame, both punted and played wide receiver for football's Denver Broncos and was selected as one of the top 100 players in team history.

Van Heusen played for the Broncos from 1968-76. As a punter he averaged 41.7 yards per punt and as a receiver a still standing Broncos' record 20.5 yards per catch for a total of 1,684 yards. He caught 11 touchdown passes. On occasion, he would run out of the punt formation and once ran 66 yards for a touchdown on a fake punt against the Houston Oilers. Van Heusen ranked among pro football's top 10 punters in gross average five times, won the NFL Golden Toe Award three times, and was named Second Team All-Pro in 1974.

At Mamaroneck High, Van Heusen played running back and middle linebacker and punted on the football team, played outfield and pitched a bit on the baseball team, and played forward on the basketball team. In senior year, he ran track to increase his speed for football. (Profile continues below gallery)

During high school, he was named to the All-County team, New York Daily News All-Star Team, and All-Herald Tribune Scholastic Team and received the Con Edison Award. He graduated in 1964 and went on to play football on a full scholarship at the University of Maryland.

Billy Van Heusen spoke in January 2025 with the Mamaroneck Historical Society about growing up in Mamaroneck and about his career.

He grew up in Mamaroneck Town, first on Mardon Road and from 10th grade on Wagon Wheel Road. He came from an athletic family. His older brother, Jeff, set a record in the broad jump that Billy tried, without success, to equal. Their mother, Francesca, would have qualified to swim in the Olympics but she got married and had Jeff, Billy Van Heusen said. In other sports, she won a number of tennis tournaments and was a strong golfer.

Billy Van Heusen was introduced to punting by gym teacher Jim Smith at Murray Avenue School. "We used to have different football games out on the school playground, and then he got me interested in punting. He was really the first person that got me interested in punting. And so, he taught me the basics, and then I just kept doing it."

Billy and Jeff would go out on the street at night and punt near a streetlight. "I just seemed to like it and just got interestd in it, and it became part of what I did."

Growing up in Mamaroneck, he said, "gave me the opportunity to play all the different sports. They had all the sports programs that kids could participate in. That was important." He played from Little League on up.

In high school, Van Heusen said: "I always thought it would end up that I would play baseball, and then once I grew and between junior year in high school going into senior year I put on about 20 pounds. And then all of a sudden I could be a runnng back and deliver the blow insead of getting hit all the time. And it changed the whole dynamic."

"I had good sppeed I was pretty quick, and once I got up to about 200 pounds all of a sudden it became difficult to just have one guy tackle me, you know . And so, that made it easier and more fun, and obviously led to - my senior year was pretty successful."

Even entering pro football, he did not see himself as only a punter.

"The important part for me in the NFL I wanted to and I was really brought in to be a receiver who could also punt," he said. "I didn't try out for the Broncos as a punter. I tried out as a receiver who could also punt."

He added: "I didn't want to be just a punter. I hate to say it. Punting was pretty easy. Receiving was a real challenge. …I just wanted to be part of the team. Being just a punter would be – I realized how important it is -. but I wanted to contribute more than that. "

He is proud of still holding the Broncos' average yards per catch record.

Watch below: Video highlights from Billy Van Heusen’s career as a receiver and punter with the Denver Broncos. He is wearing #42. (Profile continues below video)

(Video courtesy of the Billy Van Heusen Team)

After his football career, he stayed in Denver. He did a little broadcasting, including a sports radio talk show for a couple of years. In addition, he worked radio broadcasts of two college football teams, Wyoming and Colorado State. But real estate was and is his ongoing business. He became a licensed Realtor in 1972 and heads his own agency in Denver, the Billy Van Heusen Team.

In 2010, Billy Van Heusen was inducted into the Westchester County Sports Hall of Fame.

"It was great growing up in Mamaroneck and Larchmont," he told the Mamaroneck Historical Society. "It was a great experience as a kid, and I'm truly thankful that I gew up there and had the experiences that I had. I met some really wonderful people and had a lot of fun."

Sources:

Interview with Billy Van Heusen, Michael G. Meaney of the Mamaroneck Historical Society, January 28, 2025.

"Broncos announce all-time Top 100 Team," Denver Broncos, 2019.

Billy Van Heusen to be inducted into Westchester Sports Hall of Fame, The Journal News, Oct. 7, 2010.

Billy Van Heusen bio, Billy Van Heusen Team real estate agency website.

Billy Van Heusen #42 video highlights and career notes. Billy Van Heusen Team. YouTube, Sept. 20, 2021.

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Lou Gehrig: Yankees’ ‘Iron Man’ spent some of his final years in Mamaroneck Town

Lou Gehrig (1903-1941) set a Major League Baseball record for consecutive games played, but the Yankees’ legendary first baseman was felled by the devastating progressive neurological disorder that would come to bear his name: Lou Gehrig’s Disease. He and his wife, Eleanor, were living in Mamaroneck Town (Larchmont mailing address) as the disease set in and at the time he gave his “Luckiest Man” farewell speech.

The New York Yankees’ Lou Gehrig, 1930 (Library of Congress)

The New York Yankees’ Lou Gehrig, 1930 (Library of Congress)

The couple moved from a New Rochelle apartment into a “swankier” one at Stonecrest, 21 N. Chatsworth Avenue in Mamaroneck Town, in mid-March 1938, according to Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig by Jonathan Eig. Yankees then-President Ed Barrow lived in Larchmont. In New Rochelle, Lou and Eleanor had lived in a 7-story apartment building at 5 Circuit Road since marrying in 1933. The New Rochelle apartment was near Gehrig’s parents’ home on Meadow Lane. Gehrig had a small fishing boat, The Water Wagon, on Long Island Sound.

The year of the move to Mamaroneck Town, 1938, was when the disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, started to take hold in Gehrig. “It might have been around the time of his thirty-fifth birthday (June 19), when his wife noticed he was having trouble with his balance. Or it might have been a bit deeper into the summer, when his manager detected a change in the way his star slugger was swinging the bat. But it was almost certainly no later than that,” Eig wrote.

On May 3, 1939, Gehrig benched himself after playing 2,130 consecutive games. On July 4 of that year, with Gehrig’s diagnosis now public, the Yankees held Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day. Gehrig told the crowd at Yankee Stadium, “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” He finished, “I might have had a bad break, but I have an awful lot of live for. Thank you.”

His baseball career over, Gehrig looked for other work. New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia offered him a position as a commissioner with the city’s parole board. Gehrig jumped at the opportunity, but he would have to live in New York City. So, he and Eleanor found a house in Riverdale and moved there from Mamaroneck a few days before Christmas 1939. Gehrig’s condition continued to deteriorate. He died June 2, 1941. He was 37.

His consecutive-game record would endure until 1995, when it was broken by Cal Ripken Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles.

Sources:

  • Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig by Jonathan Eig. Simon & Schuster, 2005.

  • “Lou Gehrig Named to Parole Board,” The New York Times, Oct. 12, 1939.

  • “Gehrig Signed by Yanks at Estimated Salary of $35,000: Veteran Accepts $4,000 Pay Slash,” The New York Times, Jan. 26, 1939.

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Share your tips, info on more Notables

The Mamaroneck-Larchmont Notables project is ongoing. Share suggestions for others to include by emailing the Mamaroneck Historical Society at MamaroneckHistory@gmail.com.