From Player To Coach, One Man's 69 Year Journey With A Local Baseball League
By Natasha Brown
VINCENTOWN, N.J., (CBS) -- An 85-year-old baseball coach has created his own field of dreams in Vincentown, New Jersey.
Starting out as a player in the late 1940s, he's been coaching now for half a century, inspiring other players both on and off the field.
He's a living legend with the Vincentown Merchants baseball team with scores of championship wins under his belt.
Coaching and cheering from the sidelines of a field that bears his name.
"It's a great honor," said coach Harry Thompson.
Thompson has been coaching since 1961, starting out on this field as a 16-year-old player.
Coach Thompson's career spans decades. Not only has he been coaching for 50 years, he started playing with this league 69 years ago.
He takes us back in time when he had an opportunity to go to spring training with the Brooklyn Dodgers, but it would be a dream deferred by war.
"Instead I was in Korea in August 1951, so that's where I went. I got my draft notice and they said that was it," Thompson.
He served his country well, only to return home to the very baseball field where it all began. Now Thompson coaches his 18-year-old grandson in the Rancocas Valley League, a league of skilled players from their late teens to middle age.
"He's got so many stories that he can tell through all the years, just the experiences that I've gotten with him here and that I'll learn for the future, it's just memories of a lifetime," said grandson Ian Thomas.
"Not a better man, even outside baseball, a gentleman, always there for you," said baseball player John Bujanowski.
Coach Thompson just turned 85-years-old and shows no signs of stopping.
"I'm not old. I just got a bunch of young guys that keep us going here and they're the nicest kids, you wouldn't ask for better," said Thompson.
As the sun sets on another championship game, CBS 3 Eyewitness News asked the indefatigable Thompson how long he plans to coach.
"As long as God will let me be here. I hope I have a few more years."
