Pete Reiser

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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 then Willie--left handed and right handed both."

Pete had become a switch hitter in the beginning of his Major League career, but while he was in the military during World War Two, he also learned 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 1960's, 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."

Pete managed in the minors for several years, but was forced to leave as the result of a heart attack. His replacement was Duke Snider--the man who had replaced Reiser as the centerfielder 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.