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john/z28jd I have read an article about Chapman's only game and they do state his age in it.If you check his page on baseball-reference youll see there's a lot known about him including birth/death date which was confirmed by his gravestone,along with his batting and throwing hand,and height and weight.For Geer,im not sure but he was around for parts of 6 seasons and his age doesnt seem to be in dispute,they even have a his given name as well as the named he played under.Im sure stuff like that could be checked with census records and probably has,i remember sabr doing work to find out more about these players.
The other thing about both of them is they werent known when Nuxhall first played,thats probably what the confusion was about and research came up with these facts later on. Its like with Fleetwood Walker being known as the first black player along with his brother who came along later that season.Alot of people assume or did assume that Robinson was the first black player,but the other 2 players were and now are known to be before him. Recent research however uncovered another black player who played even before the Walker's in the majors named William White.If you ask most people youll get either Robinson or Walker as the first black player depending on what theyve heard and if youve only heard about Nuxhall being the youngest player then thats who you know