Rosendo "Rusty" Torres, a former major league outfielder who broke into the major leagues with the New York Yankees in 1971, was sentenced on December 11, 2014, to three years in prison for sexually abusing an eight-year-old girl while working as a baseball coach for the town of Oyster Bay. The charges stem from a 2012 incident where he allegedly fondled and flashed the girl while working at a local school playground.
Torres moved to Brooklyn from Puerto Rico at the age of seven, and was an unlikely success, emerging from the depths of the 54th round of the 1966 Major League Draft. In nine major league seasons, he posted a .212 career average with 35 home runs and was part of the 1972 trade that brought Graig Nettles to the Yankees from the Cleveland Indians.
In his post-baseball career, Torres struggled with alcohol dependency and cocaine abuse, selling his 1980 American League Championship ring, and working as a porter and cab driver to make ends meet. After hitting rock bottom, Torres founded the Winning Beyond Winning Foundation in 1998, with the hopes of educating children about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse. He made countless appearances along with a great many other retired baseball players whom he recruited to help the foundation's efforts. The foundation dissolved after Torres’ 2012 arrest.
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| Rusty Torres / N. Diunte |
In his post-baseball career, Torres struggled with alcohol dependency and cocaine abuse, selling his 1980 American League Championship ring, and working as a porter and cab driver to make ends meet. After hitting rock bottom, Torres founded the Winning Beyond Winning Foundation in 1998, with the hopes of educating children about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse. He made countless appearances along with a great many other retired baseball players whom he recruited to help the foundation's efforts. The foundation dissolved after Torres’ 2012 arrest.
