A three-sport star at Warren High School where he received ten out of a possible twelve varsity letters, Ben Ferrazzano went on to star on all-military teams and on various semi-pro and amateur baseball and football squads.

In his junior year of 1938-1939 Ben was named an All Class C football tackle.  Then in the spring he was an All Class C and All State pitcher for Warren’s Class C and State Baseball Champions, the first Class C team to win a state title in any sport.  Among his teammates were fellow Hall of Fame members John Abbruzzi, Nick Cariglia, Winky Correia, Ditty Drainville, and Beany Ryan; they were coached by another Hall of Famer, Charlie Burdge.

In 1940, as a member of Warren’s Class C Eastern Baseball Champions, he also received Class C honors.

Ben then enrolled at Rhode Island State College (now the University of Rhode Island) where he quickly became the starting center for the State freshman.  However, before long his father “asked” that he quit school and help with the family business.  And, lo and behold, he did.

In 1941 he was a member of the Crown Zippers, who won the Rhode Island Baseball League regular season title, and the football Narries.

After playing on All-Service baseball teams from 1943 to 1945, Ben returned home and played for the football Townies for a number of seasons.  In the Warren Twilight Baseball League he was the All Star pitcher for the 1947 Champions Knights of Columbus.  According to Jay Barry’s files, he may have hit the longest home run in Burr’s Hill Park history that year, lacing a line drive to left that landed ten feet short of the Water Street sidewalk.  (The other possibility was a ball that Lefty Greenwood hit into a Haile Street yard.)  Hitting .452 in 1948 he was again named to the league’s All Star team, this time as a first baseman

Ben played for the local team in the Warren versus Bristol Baseball Little World Series in 1940 and 1947.

In 1957 Warren High’s State Baseball Champions of 1939 played the Redskins’ 1956 Eastern Division Co-Champions.  Ben hurled the veterans to an early lead, but his arm soon got very tired, and the youngsters, although not the better nine, came out victorious.

Picture from Hall of Fame archives (1939 Warren High State Baseball te Champions)