Pete Reiser

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Pete Reiser
Outfielder
Born: March 17, 1919(1919-03-17)
St. Louis, Missouri
Died: October 25, 1981 (aged 62)
Palm Springs, California
Batted: Both Threw: Right
MLB debut
July 23, 1940
for the Brooklyn Dodgers
Final game
July 5, 1952
for the Cleveland Indians
Career statistics
Batting average     .295
Home runs     58
Runs batted in     368
Teams
Career highlights and awards

Harold Patrick "Pete" Reiser (March 17, 1919 - October 25, 1981), the original "Pistol Pete," was a talented and exciting outfielder in Major League Baseball during the 1940s. He played primarily for the Brooklyn Dodgers, but later for the Boston Braves, Pittsburgh Pirates and Cleveland Indians.

His splendid career would have lasted longer if not for his all-out, devil-may-care style of play, which caused him to receive several serious injuries. He regularly crashed into outfield walls, then not padded, in pursuit of fly balls.

He fractured his skull running into the 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. On one occasion Pete was given his Last Rites in the ballpark. As a rookie in 1941, he won the National League batting title while the Dodgers took home the pennant. The following year, he was hitting .380 until he ran into the concrete outfield wall while running at full speed. That incident robbed him of any more effective play that year, and caused Brooklyn's painful drop in the NL standings.

Leo Durocher, who was Pete'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 Pete Reiser, and that was Willie Mays. Durocher also said, "He had more power than Willie — left-handed and right-handed both."

A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Reiser signed originally 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.)

Reiser, a switch hitter who sometimes restricted himself to batting lefthanded 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 lefthanded." Very few position players in the history of the game have been able to throw with either arm, and none with such avowed skill.

Leo also said, "Willie Mays had everything. Pete Reiser had everything but luck."

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, and in an interview he said, "God gave me the legs, and I took myself to the wall." He also coached for the Dodgers and the California Angels.

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.

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 Smokey Joe Wood Syndrome," where a player of truly exceptional talent but a career curtailed by injury should still, 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.

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Preceded by
Debs Garms		 National League Batting Champion
1941		 Succeeded by
Ernie Lombardi
Preceded by
Danny Murtaugh
Red Schoendienst		 National League Stolen Base Champion
1942
1946		 Succeeded by
Arky Vaughan
Jackie Robinson