[Eckstein 4 Prez]

George Hall has been one of the better players in baseball in recent years, almost certainly an even better player than he was in real life. He was also a fairly memorable character in reality. Here's the opening paragraph of his SABR bio:

Baseball fans generally remember players who are involved in some of game’s most famous events. The same can be assumed of players who are the first to accomplish a particular feat in the game. However, George Hall was both a central figure in one of major-league baseball’s earliest scandals and the first major-league player to earn the title of “home run king,” but is all but forgotten by the average baseball fan. Hall’s career ended abruptly in 1877 and he essentially vanished from the modern historical record. He was one of the better hitters of the era. His batting skill, involvement in some of early baseball’s famous events, and subsequent fall from grace make him one of the more colorful players in the 19th century.

Nemec makes this interesting observation:

George Hall is one of a kind: a player who was banned from baseball but nonetheless continued to follow the game and live a productive life, seemingly without regretting that his actions had subverted any possibility of his ever again having a role in the national pastime. Trained as an engraver, he returned to that profession after being barred in 1877 and worked diligently at his trade until retiring shortly before his death in Ridgewood, New York at 74.

Hall, like several top players of the 1860s and early 1870s, was a cricket player before he was a baseball player. He was a native of England who came to the United States as a child. By 1870, he was already a top player with the Brooklyn Atlantics - the top club in the east. He played a key role in the epic Cincinnati-Brooklyn game in 1870 - he was actually the player at the plate for the game-winning play, though it seems to have been a defensive lapse rather than a big hit by Hall.

After this time with Brooklyn, when the National Association was formed, Hall signed with the Washington Olympics, where he became the teammate of some of the vanquished Cincinnati Red Stockings. He played with the relatively competitive Baltimore Canaries in 1872 and 1873 before joining Harry Wright's Boston Red Stockings and winning a pennant in 1874. He spent two years with Philadelphia, then spent his final pre-ban year in Louisville in 1877.

During this time, Hall was a good hitter and a good player, but was never really regarded as a superstar. His best season was with Philadelphia in 1876, when he batted .366 and was a skilled left fielder. His career batting average was .322, but this is slightly less impressive than it looks - eight players (Barnes, Wright, McVey, Deacon White, Anson, Pike, Jim O'Rourke and Meyerle) had better batting averages during those same years, and of course Hall was banned during what might have been his decline phase. This is in keeping with Hall's reputation at the time - a good player, probably one of the best on his team, but not a superstar like Ross Barnes, George Wright, Cap Anson or Levi Meyerle.

That was his reputation heading into the Louisville scandal. Nemec summarizes what happened pretty succinctly:

Hall's late-season performance, coupled with equally rank work from pitcher Jim Devlin, prompted talk of player crookedness in Louisville. Official inquiries were launched when the Louisville Courier-Journal put its nose to the case near the end of the season. The paper noticed how several players suddenly had begun sporting diamond rings and pins. Hall, Devlin and infielder Al Nichols were eventually banned for "selling games, conspiring to sell games and tampering with players." A fourth player, Bill Craver, although never proven to have associated with gamblers firsthand, was tossed because he also smelled malodorous to the directors of the Louisville team.

Hall's motivation for becoming embroiled in the scandal has never been satisfactorily explained. Some believe he may merely have been a fundamentally honest player who had lived for years surrounded by the temptation to rig games and finally succumbed to it when Louisville fell behind in his pay and Nichols then joined the club and began trolling for conspirators. There is evidence that the Louisville directors thought they were setting a trap for Craver, Nichols and Devlin and had no idea Hall was going to walk into it when they called him in to explain himself. Moreover, in December 1898 Jimmy Wood and Fred Pfeffer reminisced in The Sporting News about the scandal, and Wood said he was shocked that Hall had been part of it. Hall meanwhile maintained his lifelong silence.

In my universe, Hall has a lifetime .332 average - not too far off from where he was in real life. He has won the Gold Glove as the game's best right fielder three times, and has also gotten the Silver Slugger three times. In fact, perhaps he's exactly what he was in real life, since there are nine players with better career batting averages than he has. 1870s baseball was all about stars and scrubs in both universes.