To clear up some baseball questions:
I played baseball pretty much every day in the summer growing up, in a league from the ages of 6-14, plus a year in high school. I can say from personal experience that:
1. baseball is not a contact sport. Contact sports are where bodies run into each other forcefully, like ice hockey, rugby, and American football
2. playing baseball is in no way likely to cause scaring on your back or shoulders
3. the only plausible source of head trauma is getting hit in the head with a pitch when you're batting. However, Little League mandated the use of batting helmets in the 1950s so James probably grew up wearing them in Little League and in high school ball. Further, getting hit in the head is a fairly rare event, so getting hit repeatedly is possible but rather improbable.
Here's a snippet from here: Searching for the History of the Batting Helmet
Some other facts found in the March 27, 1958, article in the Chicago Tribune:
“Present Little League helmets, which still will be permitted but which – it is hoped – will be supplanted by the new and safer one, are of two types: The cap-helmet used in the big leagues and a wrap-around leather helmet which protects the temples and back of the head but not the top.
The Little League ... pioneered the use of helmets in 1949 and since that time has had only about 100 concussions yearly even tho some half-million youngsters play each season.”
Also, most men don't play much fast-pitch ball after high school so if he did happen to have baseball-related trauma it would have been in high school or before -- unless he played in the army. Still, like I said, concussions aren't an issue in baseball.
Football could cause repeated head injuries but again would be from when he was in high school. Is there any evidence that he played football or that he even had head trauma?
Thanks for clarifying the whole baseball issue!
No, we don’t have the slightest bit of evidence that he ever had head trauma of any kind.