Jim Seeley

I did not know Jim Seeley well, but I wanted to express my condolences to his family. I also wanted to express my good fortune to be part of one of Jim’s early demonstrations of his athletic ability. As a 5th grader at Ben Franklin Elementary, I tried out for the McKinley / Franklin baseball team and managed to be picked as the starting left fielder. The season progressed and we did well going undefeated. I had the chance to see some excellent athletes i.e. Jim Marsh and Jim Simon to mention two that I can remember. We won our league and were scheduled to play for the Moline Elementary School Baseball Championship. We were to play Irving, who I learned from Keith Smueles (MHS Class of “61”) a neighbor here in Laramie, WY, was where Jim Seeley went to Elementary School. The memory is slipping, but here is my remembrance. McKinley–Franklin versus Irving was a game of two legendary MHS future athletes - Jim Seeley, pitching for Irving and Curt Cook, pitching for McKinley-Franklin. I don’t remember the final score, but do remember M-F won the game. I also remember with these two (2) great pitchers dueling, it was a tense and low scoring game. Rest in Peace - Jim

Jim was a good guy.  An athlete in high school that played basketball on a pretty good 1960-1961 Moline basketball team that had a 22 win 5 loss season bookended by a season opening loss to East Rockford and a season ending loss in the Sub State Tournament to the same E-Rabs of East Rockford.  He was also an excellent baseball player known for his batting.  He was a good teammate.  In later years I worked at the Farmall Plant with Jim.  It was a career stopover for both of us.  Just a nice guy.