Inductees

Years ago, as a kid, he used to throw a rubber ball at the garage door and field it like a baseball player. Yet when his mom grew tired of the constant sound, she had an idea.

“So one day, she said, ‘Kid, get in the car.’ I didn’t know where we were going,” Jim Winn recalled. “I had delivered papers for the San Diego Union-Tribune, and she saw that there was a tryout. When she dropped me off, I didn’t even have a glove.”

From there, the game welcomed him with open arms, and Winn went on to be one of its most successful arms, climbing from the rural Ozarks to a six-year career in the big leagues. That’s why the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame proudly inducted Winn with the Class of 2025.

Winn graduated from Clever High School in 1978, months before helping the Republic American Legion baseball team win the state championship. He then went on to John Brown University in Arkansas, and in three seasons went 27-9 as a pitcher. That included a 10-2 record in 1981, when he led the team to the NAIA World Series. That season, he earned All-American honors from the America Baseball Coaches Association/Rawlings and was a first-round draft pick of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Two years later, on April 10, 1983, Winn made his big-league debut for the Pirates, starting a six-year career in Major League Baseball. He worked two scoreless and hitless innings in his debut that day, and spent the next four seasons with the Pirates. He pitched in 1987 for the Chicago White Sox and finished his career in 1988 with the Minnesota Twins.

Overall, Winn appeared in 161 games, mostly as a reliever. He won 12 games and had 10 saves, with the 1985 to 1987 seasons becoming his best work as he appeared in 136 games, worked 257.2 innings and finished 42 games. He struck out 159 batters in his career.

And to think it all started with a rubber ball thrown at a garage door.

“I remember my mom gave me 20 bucks for the tryout and said, ‘See you later,’” Winn said.

At the time, Winn was living in California as the son of a Navy man.

So when the family relocated to the Ozarks, to Clever, an rural community about 15 miles southwest of Springfield, Winn was a teenager who wanted to keep challenging himself.

He played his junior and senior seasons at Clever, also joining the basketball team, and then helped Republic win the American Legion state title.

“I was good enough to make the team, and we had a good team. We gathered everybody’s best player from every town,” Winn said. “That’s when I got noticed by scouts.”

His best decision was attending college. At John Brown in Siloam Springs, Ark., Winn worked his tail off in order to soar in the minds of old-school baseball scouts.

“The coach there really helped me,” Winn said. “He brought me along slowly. We had a starting staff there when I was a freshman. So I was one of the guys who could just sit back and watch.”

Well, more accurately, he took mental notes. Winn built up his body and arm, and was throwing his fastball in the low 90s by the time he was a junior. He also developed a quality slider.

“That’s when scouts started coming around,” Winn said. “John Brown didn’t attract a lot of people to our games. So when you saw every scout from every team watching with a radar gun – that’s when I knew I was going to get drafted.”

Drafted in 1981, his career took off two years later. That season, he was assigned to Triple-A Hawaii – yes, Hawaii – and became big-league ready.

Winn made his debut against the Houston Astros in what became a 10-8 victory. The Pirates trailed 7-2 after three innings, scored four in the fourth and then brought in Winn, whose two innings calmed the storm and allowed Pittsburgh time to work for the win.

Over the next several seasons, even with a sore arm bothering him, Winn never refused to enter a game.

“I didn’t even think of turning down a call from the bullpen,” Winn said, emphasizing that no injury or pain was about to keep him out of the game. “I did everything I wanted to do. It was great being in the big leagues. A blast.”