Like the rest of us, Rockland’s Don Kilgour likes to swear at his television and favorite baseball team when they fail to get the clutch hit late in the game. But he does it with a little more authority.

Kilgour, 89, was good enough pitching at Fryeburg Academy, University of Maine and the minor leagues for the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians to make it to the Maine Sports Hall of Fame in 2000. He loves to wear his Hall of Fame hat to the Rockland Golf Club to rub it in to his golfing buddies. Kilgour was a scratch golfer as a caddie at the Lake Kezar Country Club in his teens and still manages a respectable 90, almost his age.

But it still bothers him that he threw out his shoulder in the minors in Anniston, Ala., in 1939, just when it looked like he had a shot at the majors. “Of course it bothered me. When you work that hard at something and you don’t make it, it’s disappointing. I think I was good enough for the majors. I really do,” Kilgour said in his Broadway home.

At 89, Kilgour easily can remember those days on the mound for Fryeburg Academy in the 1930s. “I had 18 strikeouts in one game for Fryeburg. In the summer, I would pitch for any town team that would have me – Fryeburg, Lovell, North Conway and Gorham, New Hampshire.

“We never got paid much, if anything. I remember they passed the hat one night in Conway and after they paid for the baseballs and other expenses, we all got 38 cents. Twelve more cents and you could get three gallons of gas,” he said. He can remember filling up his Model A Ford for “about a dollar.” No one ever expected to pay $2 for a gallon of gas in their lifetime, he said.

Kilgour went to the University of Maine in 1933 to pitch for coach Bill Kenyon. Freshmen were not allowed to pitch for the varsity in those days, but the Fryeburg flash said “I had two or three one-hitters. I had a fastball, curve and fork ball, all taught to me by coach Cliff Gray at Fryeburg. He was on the Yankee farm team and threw a heck of a curve ball,” he said. He played for three years on the Maine varsity with friends Clarence Keegan and Hal Woodbury, who went on to play for the United States in the Olympics in Germany.

In the summer during college, Kilgour also pitched for the Worumbo Indians, sponsored by a Lisbon Falls mill that made high end camel-hair cloth. In 1937 the team won the New England semipro championship and a trip to Wichita, Kan., for the national championships.

“We took a steam train from Portland, Maine, to Wichita. Now who can say that? I remember we took Poland Spring water with us and we were glad when we got there. Their water was terrible. But we finished fourth in our division, which was pretty good for some hay shakers from Maine.”

At the Kansas championships, Kilgour caught the eye of a Chicago scout, who signed the left-hander to a minor league contract. He and his wife packed up their 1936 Chevy and took off for Dallas for the salary of $200 a month. While that is daily meal money for major leaguers today, “that wasn’t bad money for that time,” he said.

The league was about two slots below the majors, he said. “It was so hot in Texas that you couldn’t play in the daytime, only at night. I went 14-9 and had a no-hitter.” Kilgour then was sold to the Cleveland Indians and transferred to Shreveport, La. Then came the transfer to Anniston and a shattered shoulder, ending his shot at the majors in 1939.

“I told my wife, Barb, that I would give it three years, then get a job. I didn’t want to lose my education. No matter where we went or how bad it was, she never complained once,” he said.

Kilgour gave it up and took a job with Central Maine Power that lasted 38 years and brought him to Rockland. Kilgour was a familiar face on the golf course, at Rotary Club meetings and other civic affairs, where he displayed an endless number of jokes and stories. But he never took his eye off his first love, baseball.

“I just cannot believe the $20 million salaries today. There has to be a cap somewhere. The average guy can’t afford to go to a game and buy a hot dog and beer. That $200 a month was the most I ever got.”

Understandably, Kilgour is quite proud of his Hall of Fame honor. “I couldn’t believe it when they called. I never kept track of my record at Maine and in the minors. But I did quite well, I thought. I can’t think of a game I didn’t finish.”

Now he takes intense pleasure in swearing at the Red Sox, just like the rest of us. But he gets to wear his Maine Hall of Fame hat when he is doing it.

And he still laughs about the 38 cents.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.