Jimmy Adair to be in Hall of Fame Posthumous honor for long-time local resident   Jimmy Adair's 50 summers of professional baseball were an inspiration to some of the most ardent apostles of America's pastime, so it's no surprise that his home state should finally confer it highest honor. In November, the longtime resident of Carrollton-Farmers Branch will be inducted posthumously in the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Arlington. The Hall of Fame was founded in 1978 to honor five outstanding professional baseball players from the Lone Star State. One of the five each year is a posthumous honor. When Mr. Adair died of a heart attack in 1982, it was only six years after his last season as a scout for the Kansas City Royals. His half-century of professional baseball began when he and eight Waxahachie High School teammates signed contracts to start playing in 1927.  Adair, Paul Richards, Art "the Great" Shires and others were members of a 1925 high school team that won 80 consecutive games. The team was nationally recognized as having had the greatest scholastic combination of high school baseball players in history. Mr. Adair played for Mexia and Paris in the East Texas League and El Dorado, Ark., in the Cotton States League. After a year with Denver in the Western League, Mr. Adair joined the Chicago Cubs to play second base in his one year as a major league player. Rogers Hornsby managed the Cubs then, and Adair turned in a .276 batting average. He was traded the following year to the Louisville, Ky., Colonels. He played five seasons at Louisville and two more seasons on other American Association teams at Toledo and St. Paul. Throughout the 1940s, Mr. Adair managed minor league teams taking time our early in World War II to play shortstop on two California teams in the Pacific Coast League. He served two years as manager of the Dallas club called the Rebels in 1948 and the Eagles in 1949. In 1951, he joined Waxahachie High teammate Paul Richards to coach the Chicago White Sox for two years. Richards was field manager. In 1956, after three more years as a minor league manager, Mr. Adair began a 21-year career as a coach and scout in the major leagues for the Baltimore Orioles, the Houston Colt 45's (Astros), the Kansas City Royals and others. In the later years of his professional career and after he retired, Mr. Adair enjoyed teaching assignments with the Jimmy Adair Baseball Camp in Plano operated by his son, Steve, long-time southern Methodist University baseball coach. Mr. Adair's widow, Mrs. Diane Adair, and their other son, Kent, are residents of Farmers Branch.   Program from Jimmy Adair's Induction into the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4       1931 Real Photo PostCard from the collection of Edward L. Williams

 

Hillcrest Mausoleum, Dallas, Dallas County, Texas

Notes:

• Link to: Jimmy Adair Stats Page
• Link to: Biography at Wikipedia