George T. Fair (January 13, 1856 – February 12, 1939) was a
Major League Baseball second baseman who played one game for the
New York Mutuals in . The twenty-year-old Fair failed to get a hit in four at-bats in his lone big-league contest on July 29, then was dropped by the club. Subsequently, he played for the Rhode Islands of the
New England League, making his last professional baseball appearance in .
Born in
Boston, Fair died in
Roslindale, Massachusetts in 1939 at the age of 83.
At the time of his death, Fair was the last living member of the Mutuals National League franchise, which was expelled from the NL after the 1876 season.
The first baseball encyclopedia,
Hy Turkin
Hyman C. Turkin (May 9, 1915 – June 24, 1955) was a sportswriter best known for co-editing the first baseball encyclopedia.
Turkin was born in New York City, one of seven children. He joined the staff of the ''New York Daily News'' after grad ...
and
S. C. Thompson's ''Complete Encyclopedia of Baseball'' (first published in 1951), did not list Fair. Instead, his brief accomplishments were credited to Edward L. Thayer; coincidentally, a player named ''Edward Thayer'' played in the minor leagues from to .
Later references rectified this error, and Fair was given his rightful place in baseball history. (Whoever came up with Fair's pseudonym may have been thinking of the real Edward Thayer, or perhaps
Ernest Thayer
Ernest Lawrence Thayer (; August 14, 1863 – August 21, 1940) was an American writer and poet who wrote the poem "Casey" (or "Casey at the Bat"), which is "the single most famous baseball poem ever written" according to the Baseball Almanac, and ...
, author of the famous baseball poem ''
Casey at the Bat''.)
References
External links
1856 births
1939 deaths
New York Mutuals players
Major League Baseball second basemen
Rhode Islands players
Baseball players from Massachusetts
19th-century baseball players
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