Hours before Game 7 of the World Series, former MLB player and broadcaster Ron Fairly passed away. His cause of death is not known as of this writing. Fairly was 81.
Fairly made his big league debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1958 at the age of 19 only months after earning a College World Series ring at USC. He would earn three World Series rings with the Dodgers in 1959, 1963 and 1965. In the '65 Fall Classic against the Minnesota Twins, Fairly hit .379 with 2 HR and 6 RBIs, but World Series MVP honors would go to Sandy Koufax. Fairly split his time between the outfield and first base during his tenure with the Dodgers which concluded during the middle of the 1969 season when the Dodgers traded him to the expansion Montreal Expos for his former Dodger teammates Maury Wills and Manny Mota.
In 1973, while a member of the Expos, Fairly would earn his first All-Star Game selection. The Expos traded Fairly to the St. Louis Cardinals for two minor leaguers prior to the 1975 season. Late in the 1976 season, the Cardinals dealt Fairly to the Oakland A's. Fairly would soon return to yet another expansion team in Canada as the A's traded him to the Toronto Blue Jays. At the age of 38, Fairly would be the Blue Jays' lone representative on the AL All-Star Team as he hit a career high 19 home runs. Fairly would finish his playing career in 1978 in Southern California this time as a member of the California Angels. In 21 big league seasons, Fairly collected 1913 hits, a .266 lifetime batting average, 215 HR and 1044 RBI.
After his playing career, Fairly remained with the Angels as a broadcaster from 1979 to 1986 before joining the San Francisco Giants broadcast team in 1987. After a six year tenure, Fairly moved further north and broadcast games for the Seattle Mariners until 2006 although he did return to the booth for an extended period in 2011 and 2012 after the death of his longtime broadcast partner Dave Niehaus.
In all, Fairly spent nearly half a century in MLB. I think it is fair to say that Ron Fairly had a fairly good life. R.I.P.
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