Baseball's Biggest Family


Scott Hairston, seen here against the Yankees in Tampa, will carry the banner for baseball's most prolific family in 2014. The grandson of Sam Hairston, a Negro league catcher who, in 1951, became the first African American to play for the White Sox, his father Jerry enjoyed a long major league career and his uncle John, a brief one. He and his brother Jerry Junior not only made the Hairstons one of three three-generation major league families. But with five members having played in the majors, the largest ("only" four Bells and Boones have made it to MLB). And there could well be a fourth generation of Hairstons in the pipeline. I interviewed Jerry Senior at the 2013 BAT Dinner, who proudly told me of his five grandsons, several of whom show real promise as players. So baseball's biggest family might be growing even bigger!

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