James Neeley is no stranger to putting his body on the line for a good cause.

It’s an engrained philosophy that has served the 45 year-old native of Sudbury quite well through his 16 years of service with the Canadian Armed Forces.

Some thirty years ago, however, it was that same commitment to completing his mission that allowed this very improbable candidate to become a rarity in these parts, making the jump from youth baseball programs in the nickel city directly to an NCAA Division I scholarship.

“I don’t really know why baseball fit with me really well because physically, it probably doesn’t,” said Neeley from his home in Kingston, with previous stops in Gagetown (NB), Petawawa and Germany dotting the landscape of his journey beyond the sport that he loved.

“I wasn’t built to be a catcher, that’s for sure. Nobody really wants a 170 pound catcher – but it worked for me. I had really quick feet – and good hands – but I didn’t have some of the natural skills that other guys had.”

Many are the stories of local prospects who head south of the border only to return home after a year or two, for a whole multitude of reasons. By contrast, James Neeley had cracked the starting roster of the Alcorn State Braves roughly halfway through his freshman season.

This is clearly a case where the mental overrode the physical.

“For some reason, baseball clicked with me,” suggested the youngest of three children in the family, older brother Kevin ultimately playing an integral road in the path that James would travel in the sport. “I was a catcher and I liked being a catcher.”

“I was able to take the pounding, the blocked pitches, the broken fingers, getting run over a few times. Despite my size, I was able to wear it better than most, I would say.”

Where the opportunities that helped create the necessary exposure for current Sudbury catcher Gabriel Larocque to recently follow in the footsteps of Neeley, earning a scholarship to the University of San Francisco, the reality of the mid to late nineties was drastically different to that of the 2026 St Charles College senior.

The competitive model as Neeley came up through the ranks largely saw the higher end younger competitive teams playing against older counterparts perhaps one level down: peewee rep all-star team might play in the Sudbury bantam league, etc ...

“The tournaments we went to were all down south – and that’s really where we cut our teeth,” said Neeley. ‘The turning point for me was when I was 16, the local junior team were looking for a catcher and asked me if I was willing to try. I was suddenly facing guys who were throwing mid-eighties.”

“I would bat ninth in the order and my job was to play defense – which I did. It opened me up to Team North, which was a big deal for us. We got to play the higher level teams in Toronto. Those were good experiences for us, getting exposure to that level of competition.”

Baseball folks were taking note of the talents of James Neeley, even as his sibling ten years his elder had raised his awareness substantially that an NCAA scholarship might be a dream worth pursuing.

“My brother (Kevin) coached me when I was coming through, in mosquito and peewee,” recalled James. “He first opened my eyes to the possibility.”

As noted earlier, however, James Neeley was not about to wow the scouts of the basis of the physical specimen that he was – not even those scouts of the MLB variety who might make a random trek to Sudbury every summer or two back in the nineties.

“I wasn’t a big kid; I didn’t throw ninety; I didn’t run particularly fast; I didn’t stand out at these things.”

His next break came courtesy of the Sault Ste Marie baseball legend that was Eddie Jordan, a well-connected gent who wore a multitude of hats in the sport in the Lock City. He was the man who suggested to a representative of College Prospects of America that the young Sudbury backstop was well-worth a more detailed look.

“They made a profile of me and sent it to all of the schools,” said Neeley. “That’s how it happened; that’s how I got the offers.”

Casting a wide net, a few nibbles would come their way. “There was a school in California that I wanted to go to, but my mom said it was too far away,” laughed Neeley. There was also some Division II interest.

In choosing Alcorn State, the northern Ontario prospect knew that his eyes would be opened wide. Through his first two years in the program based in Lorman (Mississippi), Neeley was the only non-coloured player on the varsity team that represented the very first land-black college in the country.

In his junior year, he was joined by a pair of recruits from Australia. The following summer, the staff at Alcorn asked Neeley to move from catcher to second base and the now father of two opted to finish his degree in sociology / anthropology at the University of Olivet in Michigan.

The job market, post-graduation, would see Neeley test the water with a couple of different options, including journalism, before joining the army in 2009. “I missed the competition; I missed being part of a team; I missed being physically active, as well,” he said, inspired in part by conversations with the father of his best friend, Mark Petras (Herb).

As for leaving baseball behind, Neeley stated: “I had chased it far enough.”

His body was ready for more. But James Neeley found that, in the end, with the military – though his baseball story was definitely one to be told.