The New River Valley lost a great baseball man and a true gentleman when Shannon Hardwick died Thursday.

Hardwick, a member of the Salem-Roanoke Baseball Hall of Fame, was 87.

"He was a guy I really admired," said Jay Hardwick, Shannon's son. "The thing I remember most is that he was always such a gentleman, the most honest guy I ever met in my life. He was always well respected."

Shannon Hardwick, a right-handed pitcher known as "Ole Hardrock," played baseball with major leaguers PeeWee Reese, Phil Rizzuto, Mickey Vernon and Ted Williams, when they were stationed at the Norfolk Air Station and Camp Shelton.

After World War II, Hardwick started a pro team in Giles County. Hardwick set a minor-league record by winning his first 19 games for the New River Baseball Club and went 24-3 for the season. In two years with New River, he was 41-6.

In 1952, Hardwick successfully brought a minor-league team to Bluefield, W.Va., serving as player-manager for two seasons.

From 1956 to 1968, Hardwick served as a scout for the New York and then San Francisco Giants.

He was inducted into the Salem-Roanoke Valley Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997.

"It's the highlight of my career," Hardwick said at the time.

Hardwick, a successful businessman in insurance and real estate, was also an avid outdoorsman.

"He loved teaching the younger guys how to hunt," Jay Hardwick said.

Jay Hardwick said his father, who was 6-foot-3 and weighed 198 pounds, was "a striking man" who always stayed fit and was a natural athlete.

Jay Hardwick, now the golf coach at Virginia Tech, said the whole family began playing golf at the same time in 1955.

"Two years later he was a 2-handicap," Jay Hardwick said. "He was quite an athlete."

Shannon and Jay Hardwick won the 1989 World Invitational Father-Son Golf Championship in Hawaii.

Shannon Hardwick is survived by his wife, Dorothea Hardwick; son Jay and his wife Celia Hardwick; grandson, Cris Hardwick and many other family members and friends.

A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. today at McCoy Funeral Home Chapel in Blacksburg. A scholarship for the Virginia Tech golf team has been created in his name. Contributions can be made to the Virginia Tech Athletic Fund/Shannon Hardwick Scholarship, P.O. Box 10307, Blacksburg, Va., 24062.