PEORIA, Ill. – Joe Napoli Sr., former Bradley Baseball star and 1960 NCAA Batting Champion, has been unanimously elected to the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame. 

A member of Bradley Baseball from 1958-60, Napoli ranks second in program history in career batting average (.392) and on-base percentage (.469). Napoli's 1960 season stands as one of the best in NCAA Baseball history, as the senior from Brooklyn posted an NCAA-best .491 batting average. Napoli was one of two Braves to earn Bradley Baseball's first two All-Missouri Valley Conference First Team players at the conclusion of the season. Napoli is one of four Braves to lead the NCAA in a statistical category during a season and is one of only two Braves to win a National Batting Title (Mike Tauchman in 2013). 

Napoli was inducted into the Bradley Athletics Hall of Fame in February of 1962, less than two years after the end of his Bradley baseball tenure, and is also a member of the Greater Peoria Sports Hall of Fame. His son, Joe Napoli Jr., played outfield for Bradley Baseball from 2004-05 and was drafted by the Texas Rangers in 2005.

Congratulations to Joe Napoli Sr. for his induction into the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame. Napoli will be formally enshrined among a litany of Italian-American sports icons on Friday, Oct. 24, at The Belvidere in Elk Grove Village, Ill.