Sixty eight year old Jerry Hamelin joined the TOTS (Tucson Old Timers) baseball team in 2002.
Currently he is the only member of the TOTS who says he has major league experience and has played for the New York Yankees. According to Hamelin, the Yankees called him up in 1960 and 1961 (at the tail end of both seasons), while he was a member of the Richmond Virginians of the International League. "I batted a total of ten times and got three hits," Hamelin said. "I had the pleasure of playing with both Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris and against such players as Brooks Robinson and Ted Williams."
Hamelin figured he was well on his way to a career in the major leagues when trouble struck. Hamelin came down with spinal meningitis, just before spring training in 1962, and was left paralyzed from the waist down for more than a year. Hamelin returned to the playing field in 1963, but it wasn't with the New York Yankees.
His dream of playing in the major leagues was gone. Instead, he took up softball, and ended up working for IBM in Burlington, Vermont. He raised a family there and in 1981 transferred with IBM to Tucson. He retired from IBM in 1996, after discovering he had prostrate cancer. "I recovered from the cancer...I guess God is looking after me," Hamelin said.
Through all his troubles, and there have been many, Hamelin is still playing baseball -- not with the Yankees, but with a group of guys who keep playing for the love of the game.
In 1960 I was playing baseball in Richmond, Virginia for the Richmond Virginians as a third baseman. I was not the most gifted player on the team and knew that my chances of making the show were not real good, as I had been kicking around for a number of years. We got a young kid from the Yankees Fort Lauderdale club. He was a skinny kid with a big chip on his shoulder. But as big as his chip was his ability to play third base. He could hit, field, and throw. I knew right then that he had what it takes to make the show. I decided to take him under my wing and maybe get to the show through him. We became real good friends in the next couple years. Then in the early part of 1962 he got real sick and his career was ended. That player was Jerry Hamelin who is now in his late 60's but recovered and now plays in Tucson. I was so pleased to read the story recently in this blog. Go Jerry
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