Third basemen John Hendy hit .319 for the Bucs his senior year when the team was compiling victories and putting MMA baseball on the Division 3 map.

MMA was a force to be reckoned with in terms of its pitching, All-American hard-hitting, scrappy play and tradition-building. During Hendy’s fourth season - with 28 wins - the Bucs won the New England ECAC title. Then things changed.

MassMaritime switched its annual semester-at-sea training cruise from post-baseball to mid-winter; effectively precluding pre-season baseball training. Some rhythms of the game were interrupted and some recruiting as well. But those so-called “Buc ball” traditions endured. Yet everything is different today.

Now the team is on Commodore Hendy Field at the west side of the canal-side campus often before the frost is out of the ground and before those winds from the southwest have yet to ride out March.

MMA baseball coach Bob Corradi of Sandwich has built bonds with his teams, and he can still connect with today’s players; who are different from the young men who wandered on to the campus four decades ago when an athletic program was being reestablished.

During the early 1980s, John Hendy played third base; one season, brother Bill Hendy was at first. And one day, Corradi says, their dad the commodore came over to the bench and told Corradi that John Hendy would be better at first base than third.

“I told him if I did things as he suggested, you know, that if I did things his way, then I’d have only one Hendy on the field while the other Hendy would be on the bench,” Corradi recalled. “Then I waited. He looked at me in that hard-guy way of his and said, ‘That’s why you’re a good baseball coach and I’m a commodore.’”

Corradi credits both John and Bill Hendy. And for a single season as well, their brother Tom was on the team.

“In one year, they helped us turn this program around,” Corradi said. “They were part of the players here who were absolutely devoted to the game of baseball and how we play it. They were always ready to play.

“John Hendy was more of a hard worker than an athlete,” Corradi said. “I think Billy was more athletic. But John was almost robotic; an unbelievable clutch player. He made all the plays at third base even though he didn’t have the range there. And in the clutch, he would always hit the ball hard. He was unassuming about it. He was the most quiet, as opposed to the rest of that team. He hit .319 that season.”

In the classroom

John Hendy was MassMaritime’s first-team National Academic All-American in 1982 and no other student athlete at MMA has won the prestigious academic accolade. And during the Hendy era, Corradi compiled a 98-43-1 slate, the best ever in MMA history.

But the Hendy family tradition across three generations -- the commodore’s father was also part of the college and attended the May 1991 Hendy Field dedication ceremony in honor of his son -- may be ending.

John and Bill Hendy’s sons duly considered MMA for their college experience. But one opted for Northeastern University, Corradi said.

So there is yet one more Hendy family convergence at MMA. John Hendy lives in East Sandwich today and works at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Manomet.

He said he enjoyed his time in a Buccaneer uniform and credits the work of Corradi across 40 years of building a competitive and tradition-rich baseball regimen.

“I still support his program today,” John Hendy said. “I highly recommend attending MassMaritime. It got me headed in the right direction.”

Hendy’s oldest son is a mechanical engineering major at Northeastern where baseball is Division 1 and the studies last five years. The youngest son Jason, meanwhile, plays shortstop for Sandwich High School and the American Legion Post 188 team.

So Jason Hendy might yet attend MassMaritime? No. He’s headed for Northeastern as well and those engineering courses that await him. Life in the classroom is always important. There likely will be no time for baseball then.

The 2012 induction ceremony for the Buccaneer Athletic Hall of Fame will be on campus June 2