CALEDONIA — Local baseball legend Jim Lawrence, aka Canada’s Moonlight Graham, passed away on January 8, 2025.
It was in the early 2000s when iconic Canadian sportscaster Jamie Campbell visited Caledonia to meet Jim and grace him with that nickname. From the classic baseball movie ‘Field of Dreams’, the character Moonlight Graham made it to Major League Baseball for just one game before being sent back down, eventually leaving the sport to return home and start a medical practice without ever stepping into a major league batter’s box.
Like that fictional character, Jim appeared in two major league games as a member of the Cleveland Indians in 1963. Like Graham, Jim also never had the chance to swing at a pitch, but he did get to play catcher against the Chicago White Sox and the New York Yankees, where the great Mickey Mantle stood before him at the plate.
“There was his boyhood hero standing there. It was overwhelming,” said Jim’s son, Caledonia Councillor Dan Lawrence.
Jim’s pro career dates back to a chance encounter at a Cleveland Indians scout camp in Tilsonburg in the early 1950s. At just 12-13 years old, young Jim accompanied his older cousins to the camp, asking if he could play when they arrived.
“They were there for a couple hours.… The scouts that were there sent everybody home but kept him,” recalled Dan. “From there, he was flown into Cleveland once with the other prospects for a weekend every summer until he was able to finish high school.”
When asked if his dad ever shared tales of those early days playing for minor league teams and travelling around, Dan shared, “The one thing about dad was, he was so humble, he wouldn’t tell a story and say, ‘I did this, I did that’. We always heard the fun stories, or who he played with along the line.”

While that brush with the majors would be as far as Jim’s professional sports career would go due to an improperly cared for rotator cuff injury, it was far from the end of his life’s journey.
Following his injury, Jim declined the opportunity to manage a double-A team and chose to settle in Caledonia with his wife Dorothy. A couple years later, they opened Lawrence’s Sporting Goods, which they operated for decades until handing it down to Dan and his wife Terre.
“He never looked back; he never had any regrets.… He said, ‘You always move forward and don’t live in the past’. You learn from it, but you can’t dwell on what could have been,” said Dan. “I first went into the store part time when I was 12-years-old back in the late 70s. I worked side by side with dad and mom for many years, so I got to witness the way he was, and I enjoyed watching the way he interacted with people.”
Despite his skills, Dan said it was rare to get a game of catch in with his dad as a kid: “I found out later from my mom that when we did play catch, he literally couldn’t move his arm for a couple days, he was in that much pain – but of course he would never let on.”
Years later, Dan would ask his dad why he turned down that managing opportunity, which could have been a pathway to eventually managing a major league team.
“He said, ‘If I hadn’t retired, I wouldn’t have the friends I’ve made, I wouldn’t have had the store, and watched my family grow up in the store. It would have been different. That was a good decision and I’ve had a great life because of it’.”
Dan is happy as well with that choice: “(The store) was just such a pleasant place to grow up and learn how to interact with people.”
He recalled of his dad, “He had this really full-of-life laugh and smile to go with it. He just made people feel welcome and happy. People enjoyed coming back to the store and being there.”
Outside of work, Dan remembers his dad for the love he shared daily with those closest to him.
“Mom and dad had a circle of friends they really enjoyed being with,” he recalled. “My mom and dad were so in love – they were joined at the hips in every phase of life. They started as young teenagers and carried on forever until my mom passed away in 2017.”
It was two years after Dorothy’s passing that Jim was honoured with a ball field named after him at Caledonia’s Henning Park in 2019. Dan recalled how his father initially rejected the recognition in his trademark style.
“His first response was ‘there’s people more deserving of that than me’,” said Dan. “I said ‘Dad, this is what they want to do for you. You were the first pro ball player to come out of Caledonia and they want to do this for you because not only did you do that, but you ran the store, and were such a giving person over the years.’ I don’t know how many teams we sponsored, not just in Caledonia…. It was all about giving back. He agreed, and said, ‘Okay, I’ll let them do it’.”
Dan shared some lasting advice left behind by Jim: “Be humble. Be friendly. Take your time with people. Listen to people, and just be nice. Smile and be happy, give back to your community. That’s what small communities are all about.”