ORANGE COUNTY SPORTS HALL OF FAME : Angels’ Coach, Ex-Olympian Among Honorees
Bobby Knoop, Pat McInally, Dwight Stones, Shirley Topley and Bruce Penhall have been named to the Orange County Sports Hall of Fame.
The five, who were active in Orange County after 1965, will be inducted at a banquet Oct. 29 at the Disneyland Hotel, with four others who were elected from the veterans list and announced last week: Homer Beatty, Bill Cook, Alex Omalev and Bertha Ragan Tickey.
Knoop, who has been an Angels’ coach since 1978, was an Angels’ second baseman for six years, earning the team’s most valuable player award four times, more than any other player.
McInally, a football and basketball standout at Villa Park High School, was a football All-American at Harvard and played 11 years for the Cincinnati Bengals as a punter and receiver.
Penhall, a Newport Harbor High School graduate, won the world speedway motorcycle championship twice and the U.S. title three times.
Stones, who won two bronze medals in the Olympics, was the No. 1-ranked U.S. high jumper for nine years and was an Irvine resident for two of those years, including 1984 when he set the American record with a jump of 7 feet 8 inches. He lives in Irvine.
Topley, a county resident since 1962, was an 11-time All-American with the Orange Lionettes softball team. She coached the U.S. team that won the silver medal in the 1970 World Championships and was an assistant on the 1990 team, which won the world title.
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