Days after graduating from Roosevelt High, Mike Lum signed a pro contract with the then-Milwaukee Braves and found himself in sweltering Waycross, Ga., 17 years old and his head spinning.

"Talk about culture shock. This was the deep South and there was segregation in those days (1963), which was something foreign to a kid from Hawaii," Lum said.

Then, there were his teammates on the Waycross Braves and opponents in the Class A Georgia-Florida League.

"I looked around and everybody was bigger, faster, stronger," Lum said. "I thought to myself, ‘I’ll be lucky just to get to Double A (someday). I’d better work hard or I could be going home soon.’ "

It is testament to the devotion to his craft and persistence that the 67-year-old Lum is wrapping up 50 years in pro baseball this month and there is no sign of anybody sending him packing.

Baseball is the only full-time job Lum has ever known, and what he accomplished in a 15-season big league career has kept him in the game as a major league coach, minor league manager, farm system coordinator and hitting instructor. Not even a battle with throat cancer three years ago could separate him from the game.

Commissioner Bug Selig recently paid tribute to Lum and his half-century of work in a proclamation and ceremony.

That Lum made the most of his abilities, appearing in 1,517 major league games, getting 3,554 at-bats and hitting .247 in a career that spanned the Braves, Cincinnati’s "Big Red Machine" and Chicago Cubs, was not lost on former teammate Hank Aaron.

In 1969, the first time Aaron was lifted for a pinch hitter after 9,015 at-bats, Aaron made sure it was Lum who got the honor. And when Aaron became the Braves’ farm director, he brought Lum back to the organization as a hitting instructor.

When ailing hitting guru Charlie Lau of the Chicago White Sox set about looking for a replacement, Lum got the call. And when the White Sox tried to make a hitter of Michael Jordan, it was Lum who drew the assignment.

Yet for all Lum has achieved he has made a point to remember his beginnings and give back. Which is why four years ago, when the Pittsburgh Pirates offered Lum a job, his answer stunned them. The intention was that he would become their major league hitting coach. Instead, Lum asked for a minor league position, "the lowest of the low teams you have," Lum said.

That meant working at the Pirate City complex in Bradenton, Fla., with the organization’s first-year players and graduates of the Pirates’ teams in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

"I’ve done everything I wanted to do in coaching and I was tired of traveling, so when the Pirates talked to me I told them I wanted to work with the young kids and help build a foundation for the future," Lum said.

"My friends back home are always asking me, ‘When are you going to retire?’ " Lum said. "But I still have a passion for the game. I still get up at 4:30 a.m. each day to get ready to go to the ballpark. Each new group of young players is a new challenge for me. So, I’ll stay as long as I have the energy to do the work, hopefully for three more years until I’m 70. Or, until they tell me to leave."

After 50 years that still hasn’t happened.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.