The 1991 Kent Roosevelt High School baseball team poses for a group photo, with their beloved teammate David Starkey in the middle (jersey No. 18).

By Tom Nader

Publisher and Editor

For the 17th season, the Kent Roosevelt High School baseball team will host the David Starkey Memorial Baseball Classic.

Games are schedule to begin this weekend and will be played in honor of Starkey, who graduated from Roosevelt in 1991 and was a standout member of the Rough Riders’ 1990 district-championship team.

Starkey’s walk-off home run in a victory over Solon in the district final remains a loving and legendary story amongst his friends and teammates.

Starkey was named the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Player of the Year in 1991, then played for Cumberland College and Cuyahoga Community College.

“Big Stark” then made a name for himself on softball fields across Ohio with is “friendly smile and tape-measure home runs.”

He also began his passionate work as a youth baseball coach for Ravenna Hot Stove, youth basketball and soccer.

Starkey died unexpectedly on Aug. 22, 2007.

This year’s baseball classic schedule is as follows, with all games being played at Kent Roosevelt:

FRIDAY

Stow vs. Cuyahoga Falls, 2 p.m.

Kent Roosevelt vs. Ravenna, 5 p.m.

SATURDAY

Aurora vs. Field, 9 a.m.

Highland vs. Cloverleaf, 11:30 a.m.

Chardon vs. Hudson, 2 p.m.

Kent Roosevelt vs. Revere, 4:30 p.m.