Jerry Adair - Legacy

Legacy

Adair was a .254 hitter for his career (Carl Yastrzemski wrote in his autobiography 'Baseball, The Wall, and Me' "That man was one of the coolest clutch hitters I had seen"), and was able to hang around for thirteen seasons on the strength of a fantastic glove. He was considered a gamer who would often play when injured, and was also regarded as one of the best defensive second baseman of his era. Adair set then-Major League records for single-season fielding percentage (.994) and fewest errors (5) in 1964, and followed that up by leading the league in fielding percentage again in 1965. He also set a record for consecutive errorless games by a second baseman (89), and consecutive chances handled without an error (458) from July 22, 1964 through May 6, 1965.

After leaving Major League Baseball, Adair played in Japan for a year, and later coached for the Oakland Athletics (1972–74) and the California Angels (1975), working under his former Oriole teammate and manager in Boston Dick Williams.

Adair died of liver cancer on May 31, 1987 in Tulsa, Oklahoma at the age of 50. He is buried in Woodland Memorial Park Cemetery in Sand Springs, Oklahoma.