Fred Crane (baseball)

Frederic William Hotchkiss Crane (November 4, 1840 – April 27, 1925) played in Major League Baseball. Joining the Brooklyn Atlantics club in 1862 with teammates Joe Start and Jack Chapman from the Enterprise club, his best season was in 1865 when he scored 71 runs in 18 games (second, behind Start) for the undefeated champions. There is some indication that this Fred Crane was actually an entirely different person than the Fred Crane who played for Elizabeth and Brooklyn from 1873-75. At the time of his MLB debut in 1873, many people were excited thinking that it was the veteran Crane from the NABBP making a comeback however the Philadelphia Sunday Dispatch stated that it was "Not Fred Crane." The book Baseball Fever: Early Baseball in Michigan says that Crane was rumored to be heading to play for a club in Detroit, but it was later confirmed that he had retired in 1870.