Pete Reiser

¹

Pete Reiser
Outfielder
Batted: Left Threw: Right
debut
July 23, 1940, for the Brooklyn Dodgers
Last appearance
July 5, 1952, for the Cleveland Indians
Career statistics
Batting average	.295
Hits	786
Runs batted in	368
Teams
Brooklyn Dodgers (1940–1942, 1946–1948) Boston Braves (1949–1950) Pittsburgh Pirates (1951) Cleveland Indians (1952)
Career highlights and awards
3× All-Star selection (1941, 1942, 1946) Led National League in batting average (1941)

Harold Patrick "Pete" Reiser (March 17, 1919 - October 25, 1981), baseball's original "Pistol Pete," was an outfielder in Major League Baseball during the 1940s and early 1950s, playing primarily for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and later for the Boston Braves, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Cleveland Indians.

Early career

A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Reiser originally signed with his hometown Cardinals, but at age 19 he was among a group of minor league players declared free agents by Commissioner of Baseball Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Reportedly, Cardinal general manager Branch Rickey — mortified at losing a player of Reiser's talent — arranged for the Dodgers to sign Reiser, hide him in the minors, then trade him back to St. Louis at a later date. But Reiser's stellar performances in spring training in both 1939 and 1940 forced the Dodgers to keep him. (Ironically, Rickey would become GM of the Dodgers after the 1942 season, and witness Reiser's injury-caused decline as a great talent.)

Being injury-prone

As a rookie in 1941, Reiser won the National League batting title while the Dodgers took home the pennant. The following year, he was hitting .380 until he ran into a concrete outfield wall while running at full speed. That incident robbed him of any more effective play that year, and caused Brooklyn's drop in the NL standings.

Reiser gave great effort on every play in the field, and was therefore very injury-prone. He fractured his skull running into an outfield wall on one occasion (but still made the throw back to the infield), was temporarily paralyzed on another, and was taken off the field on a stretcher many times. Pete was once given his last rites in the ballpark.

Leo Durocher, who was Reiser's first major league manager, reflected many years later that in terms of talent, skill, and potential, there was only one other player comparable to Reiser - Willie Mays. Durocher also said that "he had more power than Willie — left-handed and right-handed both."¹

Reiser, a switch hitter who sometimes restricted himself to batting left-handed because of injury, served in the United States Army during World War II, playing baseball for Army teams. While serving, he was injured again and had to learn to throw with both arms. Durocher said, "And he could throw at least as good as Willie [Mays] right-handed and left-handed."²

When Reiser returned to the majors in 1946, he was still suffering from the injury from playing Army baseball. He was never the same hitter that he was early in his career. However, he still retained his speed and stole home plate a record seven times in 1946.

Later life

When Leo Durocher was named manager of the Chicago Cubs in the 1960s, he brought many of his former players to coach on his staff. Reiser was one of them. He later coached for the California Angels, as well.

Pete managed in the minors for several years, winning the 1959 Minor League Manager of the Year Award from The Sporting News. But he was forced to step down in 1965 as skipper of the AAA Spokane Indians as the result of a heart attack. His replacement was Duke Snider — the man who had replaced Reiser as the center fielder for the Brooklyn Dodgers decades earlier.³

In 1981, Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included him in their book The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time. They explained what they called "the Smoky Joe Wood Syndrome," where a player of truly exceptional talent but a career curtailed by injury, in spite of not having had career statistics that would quantitatively rank him with the all-time greats, should still be included on their list of the 100 greatest players.

Reiser died in Palm Springs, California, of respiratory disease, at age 62.

See also

• List of Major League Baseball batting champions
• List of Major League Baseball runs scored champions
• List of Major League Baseball stolen base champions
• List of Major League Baseball doubles champions
• List of Major League Baseball triples champions

Sources

• Durocher, Leo, with Ed Lynn. Nice Guys Finish Last.¹ ²
• Honig, Donald. Baseball When The Grass Was Real.³

External links

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball Reference
• Baseball Library
• Pete Reiser at Find a Grave