R.I.P. Jim Welsh

Former Windsor, Ont., baseball star Jim Welsh has passed away on February 11.

March 8, 2020

By Danny Gallagher

Canadian Baseball Network

Jim Welsh of Windsor, Ontario was so talented at baseball that teams in other parts of Ontario found out about him and wanted him on their team.

So Welsh was recruited to play as a second baseman for the Cambridge Terriers in the fabled Intercounty league when he was of high school age and for the Frood Tigers as a 17-year-old in the Nickel Belt league in Sudbury in the 1940s.

That was the golden age of adult amateur baseball in Ontario, senior ball as many people call it.

"I'm not pretending he was a superstar but he was a really good athlete amongst a bunch of other great athletes,'' his daughter Moira Welsh told me about his father.

Jim Welsh died in Port Hope, Ont. east of Toronto on Feb. 11 and as his death notice said, "he died on the first day of spring training.'

Welsh came from a baseball-crazy family and attended Walkerville Collegiate Institute in Windsor where he was a tremendous athlete. He spent his early Windsor baseball years in the Mic Mac organization.

As some newspaper articles given to me by his daughter show, Welsh played at least one year with the Windsor Sterlings in the Class C Detroit Amateur Baseball Federation. In one game, he went 4-for-4 as a leadoff man, including an inside-the-park home run.

"My dad’s aunt Vera Learmonth played for the Windsor Women’s softball team before the Second World War, so her team predated A League of Their Own,'' Moira said. "Vera lived across the street from my dad and she played catch with him every day after school and during the summer. ''

When Welsh played in Sudbury in 1947, Windsor writer Doug Vaughan found out about him and wrote that Welsh was "one of the best prospects to cavort in the Nickel Belt circuit this past season.'' He batted .311 and excelled in patrolling centre field.

Welsh was scouted by a number of major-league teams, although he never signed a contract per-se and ultimately, he was convinced by his father Charlie to get a job in the real world. So he worked in accounting in Windsor and later with Joy Manufacturing in Cambridge and Mutual Life of Canada in Kitchener before he obtained his Canadian securities designation to help customers in investing.

"Jim loved baseball as much as he loved his wife, his two daughters and his Scottish roots,'' his death notice said.

Welsh absolutely adored Boston Red Sox legend Ted Williams and anytime the Red Sox played in Detroit, Welsh would make sure to go across the border and see the Tigers play against his hero, whom he called the "greatest player of all time.''

On his deathbed, Welsh looked up at his grandson Daniel and said, "You look like Ted Williams.''

Welsh leaves his daughters Moira and Megan, four grandsons and numerous relatives and friends. Before he left, he serenaded family members with his rendition of Brush Up Your Shakespeare.

Danny Gallagher is signing copies of his new Expos book Always Remembered March 19 at Bill Humber's Baseball Spring Training For Fans class at the Toronto Reference Library on Yonge St. north of Bloor, beginning at 6 p.m. You will also find him with his books at Exposfest March 22 at the Embassy Plaza in Laval, Quebec from 2-6.