Baseball was a way Of life for James "Mimi" Pickett when he was growing up in Sanford in the 1930's and 40's.
Pickett’s neighbors included the six L'Heureux brothers including Walter..
(Maine Baseball Hall of Fame 1982) and Charles and Bryce Beattie (former Freeport basketball coach). They spent countless hours playing baseball or just hitting rocks.
If Mimi wasn’t with the L'Heureux brothers or Beattie boys, he was usually down at the playground, involved in a game of sandlot baseball.
Pickett was smaller than most of the athletes his age. As a result, he didn't make the baseball team at St. Ignatius Grammar School.Then fate intervened.
One day Mimi was attending a game in the absence of the coach, Donald Jackson, a friend from the playground sandlot, put Pickett in the game at third base.
Before the day was over, Mimi was pitching in relief.
He won the game 4-3, made the team and finished the year with a .549 batting average.
At Sanford High School, played four years of baseball, three on the varsity.
As a senior, he finished his high school career by hitting .618 in the Telegram League in 1945.
Also in his final year, he managed the basketball team, was co-captain of the football team and captain of the baseball team.
Mimi was also recipient of the Campbell Cup, an award presented by the men of the faculty “to the boy in the graduating class who, during four years, has shown the most improvement in athletics, scholarship and character."
Pickett enrolled at Fordham University in the fall of 1946. He made the baseball team as a walk-on and was assigned to the junior varsity.
Before the Rams began play in the New York City Metropolitan Conference, he had turned some heads with his heavy hitting and was at first base for the Varsity.
During the summers, Paul Demers (Maine Baseball Hall of Fame 1977) always found a job for Pickett playing baseball in Sanford for the strong Goodall Sanford team and the Gonic Manufacturing team in Gonic, N.H.
in 1949, after graduating from Fordham with a B.S. degree in chemistry, Pickett began work for Goodall Fabrics in Sanford. This also provided an opportunity to continue with baseball as a coach for the American Legion Thomas Cole Post team.
Pickett, the youngest player on the team, fresh out of high school, was the most “timely” hitter on the team, driving in 32 runs in 27 games while batting .291
From Legacy Page
https://obituaries.pressherald.com/obituaries/mainetoday-pressherald/obituary.aspx?n=james-b-pickett-mimi&pid=186412618&fhid=18577
James B. "Mimi" Pickett April 18, 1928 - Aug. 16, 2017
James attended St. Ignatius Grammar School and graduated from Sanford High School in 1945, where he was the recipient of the Campbell Cup.
While there, he was the co-captain of the football team and captain of the baseball team. In 1945, his batting average was .618 in the Telegram League. Jim played baseball for Fordham University, the Goodall-Sanford team and Gonic Mfg. Co. of Gonic, N.H. He was inducted into the Maine Baseball Hall of Fame in 1992.
