Michael Henry McGeary (November 16, 1850 – October 2, 1933) was an American professional baseball player whose career spanned from 1871 to 1882.

He played 11 seasons in Major League Baseball, playing principally as an infielder and catcher, for seven different major league clubs: the Troy Haymakers (1870–1871), the Philadelphia Athletics (NA) (1872–1874), the Philadelphia White Stockings (1875), the St. Louis Brown Stockings (1876–1877), the Providence Grays (1879–1880), the Cleveland Blues (1880–1881) and the Detroit Wolverines (1882).

Three of those clubs, the Philadelphia White Stockings, Providence Grays and Cleveland Blues, also employed him as player-manager.

[1] His parents, Michael and Ann McGeary (or McGary), were both immigrants from Ireland, and his father worked as a carpenter in Philadelphia.

He compiled a .264 batting average, scored 42 runs in 29 games, and led the NABBP with 20 stolen bases.

His Wins Above Replacement (WAR) rating of 1.9 in 1872 was the ninth highest among all position players in the National Association.

He compiled a .290 batting average, stole 19 bases, and scored a career high 71 runs in 68 games.

[1] In the early days of professional baseball, McGeary developed a reputation as one of the best base runners in the game.

'"[9] In 1905, The Sporting Life wrote that McGeary was the best base-runner of his era: "The famous Mike McGeary in his day the best runner in the profession, and the Mike Kelly of that period, in point of base ball brains was the one player who regularly practiced sliding.

An article published in 1884 cited him as one of the players who, along with Albert Spalding, Emil Gross, and Cap Anson, had grown rich off the game of baseball.

[13] On October 18, 1875, errors by McGeary were also cited as contributing to a Philadelphia loss in which heavy betting was placed on the opposing team.

In 1888, The Sporting Life published a story suggesting that McGeary had used "a very peculiar yellow umbrella" to communicate with gamblers at the ball park.

Then Captain Mike would move over into another part of the stand where some one was offering a heavy bet that his club would not score a run in the next inning.

In order to wipe the perspiration from his brow the yellow umbrella had to be lowered and while this work was being done, his men out on the field would become possessed, and fairly knock the ball out of the enclosure.

He compiled a .143 batting average for Detroit, appeared in his last major league game on June 26, 1882 (at age 31), and was released the next day.

[18][19][20][21][22][23][24] At the time of the 1910 United States Census, McGeary was living as a lodger at 98 West 102nd Street in Manhattan and listed his occupation as a builder of houses.