A phantom ballplayer is either a baseball player who is incorrectly listed in source materials as playing in a Major League Baseball (MLB) game, often the result of typographical or clerical errors, or a player who spent time on an MLB active roster without ever appearing in an MLB contest during his career. Most of the first form of phantom players date from the 19th or early 20th century, with at least one showing up as late as World War II. A modern-day phantom ballplayer is generally caused by the player being removed from the active roster by a subsequent action (such as being optioned to a minor league team) or the team reaching the end of their season, and the player not having later opportunity to play in a major league game. Many of these phantom players were September call-ups in backup roles. Phantoms who never were Edward L. Thayer supposedly played one game for the 1876 New York Mutuals; he was listed in The Official Encyclopedia of Baseball as having been born in Mechanic Falls, Maine. The player was actually George Fair, who adopted a pseudonym that, coincidentally, resembled the name of then-12-year-old Ernest Lawrence Thayer, who went on to become a poet and write "Casey at the Bat." (Some 19th and early 20th century players sometimes played under assumed names in an attempt to circumvent contractual obligations with another club.) An outfielder named Turbot (no first name given) was listed in The Official Encyclopedia of Baseball as playing one game for the 1902 St. Louis Cardinals. In the 1971 anthology This Great Game, writer and humorist Roy Blount Jr. included him on his "all-time fish team" (as turbot is also the name of a fish) and bemoaned that Turbot had been dropped from the encyclopedia; "I don't know what happened to him, but we need him in the outfield." Lou Proctor was listed as playing one game for the 1912 St. Louis Browns, drawing a walk in his only plate appearance. He appeared in The Official Encyclopedia of Baseball as a pinch hitter named "L. Proctor". Research in the 1980s, however, revealed that the appearance belonged to the Browns' Pete Compton. According to legend, Proctor was a Western Union operator who inserted his name into the box score as a prank. However, whether Proctor existed—even as a prankish telegraph operator—is unknown. A catcher named Deniens (no first