Fred Lear

Frederick Francis Lear
(King)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 0", Weight 180 lb.
• School Villanova University
• Debut June 7, 1915
• Final Game June 22, 1920
• Born April 7, 1894 in New York, NY USA
• Died October 13, 1955 in East Orange, NJ USA

BR page

Biographical Information

Infielder Fred Lear went straight from Villanova University to the majors, playing in a pair of games for the 1915 Philadelphia Athletics. He appeared in two more big league games for the 1918 Chicago Cubs but spent most of that year with the Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League, with whom he hit .345 in 99 games. He returned to the majors with the Cubs the next year and the New York Giants in 1920.

Lear played for the Milwaukee Brewers from 1921 to 1923 and again in 1927. He hit .358 for the club in 1921 and .354 the following year.

Lear served in the U.S. Navy during World War I (BN).

After his playing days were over, Lear scouted for the Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago White Sox. For a number of years he operated a restaurant at New Dorp, NY and also worked for the American Legion restaurant at Stapleton, NY. He died in the Veteran's Hospital in East Orange, NJ and is buried at St. Mary's Cemetery in Staten Island, NY.

Sources

Principal sources for Fred Lear include newspaper obituaries (OB), government Veteran records (VA,CM,CW), Stars & Stripes (S&S), Sporting Life (SL), The Sporting News (TSN), The Sports Encyclopedia:Baseball 2006 by David Neft & Richard Cohen (N&C), old Who's Who in Baseballs {{{WW}}} (WW), old Baseball Registers {{{BR}}} (BR) , old Daguerreotypes by TSN {{{DAG}}} (DAG), Stars&Stripes (S&S), The Baseball Necrology by Bill Lee (BN), Pat Doyle's Professional Ballplayer DataBase (PD), The Baseball Library (BL), Baseball in World War II Europe by Gary Bedingfield (GB) {{{MORE}}} and independent research by Walter Kephart (WK) and Frank Russo (FR) and others.