About
Scroll down for a quick bio of Dennis Bair
I am a former minor league baseball player - after my junior year of college in 1995 I was drafted as a pitcher by the Chicago Cubs, and later signed minor league free agent contracts with the Cincinnati Reds and Arizona Diamondbacks. An injury to my pitching shoulder ended my career.
Like all of us, I have seen countless photos of missing children on milk cartons, on the walls at the post office, and on flyers in the mail. But I always ended up throwing the milk carton away when the milk was gone. I would also walk right by the pictures at the post office without taking the time to look at them. And those flyers I got in the mail would inevitably end up in the recycling bin or the garbage can. I thought there must be a better way to get people to actually look at the photos instead of ignoring them or throwing them away.
It all came about one offseason when I was cleaning out my childhood bedroom: "I found an autographed picture of [former Pittsburgh Steeler running back] Rocky Bleier, and an idea came into my head. I thought of all the pictures of missing kids that I had thrown away, but I would have never thrown out my picture of Rocky Bleier. It occurred to me that if there had been a picture of a missing child in the corner, I would still have it. It was like two halves of my brain came together, and in the middle there was the idea. I thought to myself, 'This is it, this solves the problem. This is how you get pictures of missing kids into the hands of sports fans.'"
I realized that if a ballplayer could sign the photo and give it to a kid at a baseball game, that kid would actually look at it and, better yet, keep it and show it to their family and friends. I could enlist children themselves in the search for a missing child - and double the amount of eyeballs in the search. I could bring new hope to the parents of a missing child!
I have held autograph sessions with minor league affiliates of the New York Yankees, Detroit Tigers, Chicago Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, Cleveland Indians and Minnesota Twins. Seven children I've featured have been located!
The BairFind Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, based out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Please contact me if you would like more information, at dennis@bairfind.org.
I have received incredible help from many friends who believe in this project. A special thank you goes to Nate Fincher, Jay Triplett and Attorney James DePasquale. They have given their expertise and time to BairFind. Together, we will revolutionize the search for missing children.
- 1992 - Graduate, Taylor Allderdice High School, Pittsburgh, PA
- 1995 - 8th round draft choice, Chicago Cubs, MLB June Draft out of Northeast Lousiana University, Monroe, LA
- 2006 - University of Pittsburgh, BA in History
- 2007 - Inducted into the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame of Western Pennsylvania, 25th Anniversary Class
- 2011 - Established The BairFind Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, raising awareness for missing children.