Baseball Road Mapper: Jimmy Adair

Lon Goldstein, who performed for some of baseball’s top managers including Bill McKechnie at Cincinnati in 1943 and ’46, does not hold back praise for Texas diamond legend Jimmy Adair.

“Jimmy Adair was thorough and the best manager I ever played for,” Goldstein noted. “He knew the game inside and out and gave a reason for every move.”

Goldstein, who also played at Syracuse for former Pirates pilot Jewel Ens at Syracuse in 1943-44, played professionally for 15 years with a career batting average of .331 thanks to the tutelage of managers such as Adair, who also guided Lon in the Big State League at Gainesville, Texas.

Just as so many others of his generation, Jimmy was a consummate baseball man. He was in the game for 50 years as a player, manager and scout. Adair was associated with 21 minor league teams and played for 12 years in those organizations. He later managed in the minors for 11 years and was a coach in the major leagues with the Red Sox, Orioles, and old Houston Colt .45s as well as the modern Houston Astros.

In 1924-25 Adair began his baseball walk of fame as a member of Waxahachie High School teams, which were a combined 84-1. Eight members of that starting nine played professional baseball, and among those schoolboy teammates were Paul Richards, Art Shires, Archie Wise, and Belve Bean.

Richards made his old high school chum a third base coach for the Chicago White Sox in 1951-52 and later took him to the Orioles in a similar capacity.

Adair’s shining moments as a player came in the early 1930s. He battled Billy Herman for the starting second base spot for the 1932 Chicago Cubs under Rogers Hornsby.

“Rogers only spoke to me once when he manager for the Cubs,” Adair laughed several years later. “That was after I went 4-for-5. He told me, ‘Nice going, kid,’ and that was it!”

Once Adair feared for his managing life as field boss for the Dallas club. Volatile Dick Burnett called him over after Dallas lost a close opening game of a doubleheader.

“He told me I was managing like I had one pitcher that day,” Adair recalled, “and I expected to get my release between games. We won the second one, though, and he came over and congratulated me for a great managing job.”

In spite of the gruffness of Burnett and the rugged life of coaching in the majors, Adair remained a solid force in baseball circles until his death in 1982. His son, Steve Adair, was head baseball coach at both the University of Plano and Southern Methodist University and remains as one of the outstanding baseball teachers in the area with the “Adair Baseball School.” Steve has enjoyed a fabled coaching career at Trinity Christian Academy in Dallas where he has captured several state private school titles and sent numerous players to college and pro careers.