A hard-throwing lefthander pitcher with an equally devastating curve and knuckler, the 6’0, 150-pound Hanabury signed with the Boston Braves in 1949—on the same day the Braves won the pennant. Yet, to start the story there does not do the man nor ballplayer justice.

Raised in Quincy, Hanabury starred at Quincy High School and played for Post 95, throwing the first no-hit, no-run game in the history of the South Shore. While the inquiries from big league clubs poured in, Jim had other inspirations, choosing to join the Navy before graduating high school in 1941.

Remarkably, during his six-year Navy tour—before, during, and after World War II—Hanabury never picked up a baseball. Perhaps even more remarkably, he was able to pick up his baseball career where he left off, again drawing interest from a number of big league club before signing with the Braves.

Hanabury continued his dominance but hernia and knee injuries kept him from being called up to the big club. In 1950, he signed on with the St. Louis Cardinals, but again fell victim to the injury bug. Undeterred, he signed on to play with the Halifax Capitals up in Nova Scotia as part of an independent league in Canada.

Playing for room and board and an extremely modest salary, Jim embraced the Canadian league competition for the next few years, striking out batters at a clip of more than 10 a game. The piece de la resistance of those being a 22-strikeout game against New Brunswick!

Though that was enough to draw the interest of big league scouts, Hanabury opted to return to civilian life. He attended RPI University in upstate New York and became a structural engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Waltham, Massachusetts. Yet, his passion for the game never left and Hanabury found himself at the age of 40 pitching for the Somerville Red Sox of the Boston Park League (BPL).

The oldest amateur baseball league in the country, the BPL featured teams from all over Boston and routinely drew crowds of 6,000 or more. Per usual, Jim excelled, pitching for a number of BPL teams until the age of 47. In fact, his performance in the BPL earned him a place in the league’s Hall of Fame, to which he was enshrined in 2005.

Ironically, it was Hanabury’s pitching in the BPL that finally got him to the big leagues in the 1960s as a batting practice pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. Jim tossed BP for the likes of Carl Yastrzemski, Tony Conigliaro, George Scott, as well as a few other visiting major league teams. Even in his late 40s and early 50s, Jim could still bring it to the point where Captain Carl opted not to take batting practice against the hard-throwing lefty.

A resident of West Plymouth for the past 19 years, Hanabury, now 83, still loves the game of baseball. Yet it’s another kind of performing that stirs him: singing. He’s been a regular at The Cabby Shack’s “open mike night” for the past few years.

Still, in a baseball era of guaranteed, eight-figure contracts, you won’t find too many Jim Hanaburys out there today. And for the newest chapter in Plymouth’s minor league baseball tradition—our own Plymouth River Eels—he’s set the bar mighty high.

Editor’s note: This month, Joe D’Eramo, a freelance copywriter and owner/operator of Hiroad Communications, www.hiroadcommunications.com joins the River Eels team. Joe has been writing and loving baseball and often writing about loving baseball for over 20 years.