JIMMY KENDALL

James Thomas Kendall had been born in Jersey City in 1928. As a young man he had a history of arrests, the earliest being in 1941. He had hoped to pursue a career in professional baseball, and in 1947 he spent three years as part of the Boston Braves organization. He was proud of his ability to make it from home to first base in three and a half seconds, and the team called him up in case one of the players got hurt. However, the player remained healthy, Jimmy never got into the game, and for two weeks in the major leagues he had driven the team bus.

Following his brief baseball career, in about 1955, Jimmy became associated with the Charles "Papa Chuck" Banning crime family, most often in the role of hitman carrying out contract assassinations. Banning had given him his start in the business, and this association lasted for about 20 years during which time Jimmy earned the nickname "The Eraser" and a reputation as one of the best contract killers in the business. During his career he was arrested several times and served a total of 26 years in local, state, and federal detention, the last ten years being for his conviction in 1976 for extortion.

Upon his release from prison in 1986, Jimmy didn't have the heart for the criminal life anymore, and he sought only to retire in peace, but in reconnecting with Charles Banning, he was coerced into taking one last contract, to kill Michael Simmons. Simmons, an unscrupulous employee of Vectrocon Systems, had been tapped by Banning to steal and sell top-secret technology to East Germany, but Simmons chose to betray Banning and double-cross the East Germans for his own profit. As a result, the US government wanted Simmons alive for betraying his country, and Banning wanted Simmons dead.

MacGyver was searching for Simmons on behalf of the Phoenix Foundation, and when he and Jimmy encountered each other and discovered they were both seeking the same man, Jimmy suggested they work together. He fabricated the story that Simmons was his estranged son with whom he hoped to reconnect. He showed MacGyver a picture of himself with a young boy in Atlantic City taken in 1964, although the boy in the picture was in fact his nephew Frankie, son of his sister. He also staged an ambush of MacGyver at Vectrocon in order to "rescue" him and earn his trust. Indeed, MacGyver did come to trust him, they bonded over talk of sports, MacGyver invited him to stay at his apartment, and he promised to reach out to Jimmy when he had found Simmons.

When MacGyver located Simmons, Jimmy arrived with Ralph, one of Banning's bodyguards, and MacGyver realized they had been targeted for assassination. MacGyver refused to turn Simmons over to be killed, and Jimmy, finally accepting that he no longer had the heart for the life, relented and let them go before vanishing himself. However, Ralph overheard the conversation and reported back to Banning that Jimmy had failed to complete the contract, and Banning ordered Ralph to take out Jimmy himself.

When MacGyver learned of Jimmy's connection to Papa Chuck Banning and realized that Jimmy was now a target, he was determined to find him. Recalling Jimmy's words that he "just want to go where the weather's good and watch kids play ball," MacGyver finally found him at a kids' baseball game. Jimmy had accepted that there was no escape, and he was prepared to die, but MacGyver convinced him to flee, and they found themselves hiding from Ralph and Banning's men in a balloon factory. Using mirrors, fake blood, and sound effects, MacGyver created an optical illusion to fool Ralph into believing that Jimmy had been killed, and Ralph returned to Banning to report that the contract had been completed.

A large funeral was held for Jimmy, complete with reporters and a large flower arrangement from Papa Chuck. However, MacGyver's bonus for this assignment was to get Jimmy into witness protection, and Thornton had arranged for his new name, new personal identity, and relocation to Florida. MacGyver had gotten him a job working as the equipment manager for a minor league baseball team. There, using the name Louie, Jimmy began a new life, regaling his new team with stories of his own career, insisting that "for a two-week stretch, the team couldn't go anywhere without me."

Portrayed by: Joe Santos

Cross Reference: Charles Banning, Ralph, Michael Simmons

Episode Reference: The Eraser