Jim Prime has been interested in writing since his
days as a high school student at Islands Consolidated School in Freeport,
NS
After graduating from Acadia University in 1971, Jim gained employment
at Gage Publishing and has worked in the publishing world ever since.
His big break as a writer came in 1980, ironically while he was in
hospital. He wrote a letter to Ted Williams, the former Boston Red Sox
batting star and asked for a chance to interview the man known throughout
baseball as the Splendid Splinter.
"I had been a fan of Ted Williams since I read his autobiography in
my late teens," says Jim. "To me he was an inspirational guy, someone
who had set a goal for himself and refused to stop until he attained
it. That appealed to me."
The letter elicited a positive response and Williams subsequently invited
Jim to his salmon fishing lodge on New Brunswick's Miramichi River.
The visit resulted in an interview that appeared in the pages of the
Halifax Chronicle-Herald, Baseball Digest, and Baseball Cards magazine.
Jim continued to visit Ted every summer and several years later convinced
him to co-author a book entitled Ted Williams' Hit List, a ranking of
the greatest hitters of all time. "I wore him down," suggests Prime.
"He once called me 'the most persistent son-of-a-bitch I've ever met,'
and that remains one of the highest compliments I've ever received."
The book did extremely well in both Canada and the U.S. and was the
inspiration for the Ted Williams Hitters Hall of Fame at the Ted Williams
Museum in Florida. Hit List spawned several other books, including Ted
Williams, a Tribute; Tales from the Red Sox Dugout; More Tales from
the Red Sox Dugout; Fenway Saved; The Little Red Sox Book; Red Sox Essential,
and most recently Baseball Eccentrics.
Jim holds a BA and BED from Acadia and while pursuing his studies at
the Annapolis Valley school, was on the staff of the Athenaeum, the
campus newspaper.
In addition to the eleven books he has written, he has contributed
to several others and has penned a number of magazine and newspaper
articles on baseball, boxing and other sports. A short story entitled
The Magic Baseball Card has been published in several elementary and
junior high school anthologies.
Jim served as editor of the Acadia Alumni Bulletin and also created
and edited The AxeNews, a publication for Acadia's Department of Athletics.
He lives in New Minas, Nova Scotia with his wife Glenna.