The Minnesota Twins, looking for some veteran leadership, called him up from their Triple A squad earlier this week to help out in the bullpen. If they want a man to show their players how to play with heart, they picked the right guy.
Baldwin is a homegrown product, a guy who signed with the Chicago White Sox right after graduating from Pinecrest High School in 1990. He married his high school sweetheart, Sharon. They are the proud parents of two children, and they still make their home in Moore County. His son, James Baldwin III, is following in his father’s footsteps, playing ball this spring and summer in the area Optimist League.
I know there is a constant influx of new residents to Moore County, so the name Baldwin might not be that familiar to them. But for the longtime residents of the area, Baldwin’s story is the stuff of local legend.
A three-sport star at Pinecrest, Baldwin has his mind set on getting a scholarship to play major college football. In the meantime, Baldwin plays a little baseball, taking his 6-3, 210-pound frame out to the mound to pitch for the Patriots.
Now, as the story goes, during Baldwin’s senior season at Pinecrest the Patriots head down to Hoke County to play the Bucks, who have a hurler named John Roper. Roper has the pro scouts drooling, and the bird dogs are heading over to little old Hoke County High to watch Roper pitch.
It just so happens that Baldwin is the Pinecrest starter the day that several scouts are in town to see Roper. Turns out that Baldwin, a right-hander whose first pitching assignment involved throwing rocks (at anything, he says) when he was a young kid, impresses the scouts as much as Roper does, and the White Sox end up drafting him.
Signing a contract when you’re 18 doesn’t guarantee a job in the majors. The list of fallen-by-the-wayside wannabe pro players is littered with can’t-miss prospects and dreamers that eventually gave up.
But Baldwin never gives up. He hangs in there, and he eventually makes it to the bigs. (Roper also made it to the major leagues, but flamed out after a few seasons.)
After five years climbing the ladder in the minors, he finally reaches the top with the White Sox. In his first full season in 1996, he goes 11-6. His journey to the minors at the beginning of this season, really starts during the White Sox’s 2000 season.
Now, I can’t remember exactly his stats, but he starts that year as one of the hottest pitchers in the majors. I think he wins seven games in a row, and eventually is something like 11-2 heading into that year’s All-Star game being played in Atlanta. He starts the game, ends up being the winning pitcher, something he doesn’t discover until the next day.
You see, after he leaves the game he jumps in a car, drives back to Pinehurst, getting to the hospital in the wee hours of the morning just in time to be there with his wife when their daughter is born. That’s a heart that’s in the right place.
His heart is in the right place in that 2000 season, too, when he basically throws his arm away trying to help the White Sox do something unusual – produce a winner. After spending most of August resting a dead arm (which would eventually require shoulder surgery) Baldwin comes back in September in time for the White Sox’s drive to the playoffs. Then he takes that tired arm hinged on an injured shoulder and tries to keep his team alive in the divisional playoffs against Seattle.
He pitches his heart out, with an arm noticeably hanging a little more limp after every pitch, as the ChiSox, down 2-0 to the M’s in the five-game series, try to stave off elimination. He fights through six innings, leaving with the score tied in a game the M’s would win on a squeeze bunt in the ninth inning.
Baldwin undergoes his shoulder surgery that offseason. He comes back too early from the surgery in 2001, performs below par and the Sox ship him off to the Dodgers midway through the season. He signs with Seattle last season as a free agent and struggles to a 7-9 record. They let him go.
Baldwin has never been a quitter, and that might just be why he agreed to go down to the minors this season.
His arm might not be quite the same as it was before the surgery, but the Twins will probably find out soon enough there isn’t a thing wrong with his heart.
