James “Jimmy” Trott was born in Westville, Nova Scotia in 1885. His family moved to Springhill a couple of years later where Trott became one of the top pitchers in the Maritimes, in the days when baseball was king. According to his old catcher, Hall of Famer John “Jack” Stan Fraser, “Trott was an ironman who could pitch on a minute’s notice. He was the Satchel Paige of the early days.”

Trott began his baseball career in Springhill and by 1906 was pitching for the Dominion Hawks. He also pitched for other teams in Amherst and Cape Breton, including the Sydney Mines. Trott was a “right-handed hurler who felt that his breaking ball was his bread and butter pitch.”

In his prime, Trott pitched four to five games a week. His Springhill fans thought of him as one of the best players ever to wear Springhill colors. In 1930, forty-six-year-old Trott was persuaded to come out of retirement to pitch for the town team. He breezed through all nine innings and walked off the mound with a 9-1 decision.

Aside from playing baseball, Trott also served in World War I with the Canadian Army, worked as a barber in Stellarton, and a coal miner in Springhill. Trott passed away on October 26, 1977, in New Glasgow, at the age of 92. James Trott is an Original Sport Hall of Fame Inductee.