The Greatest Natural Baseball Player of All Time
by JoeDelGrippo
Today is March 17th, St. Patrick’s Day, and many people across this world are celebrating the Luck of the Irish, enjoying corned beef and cabbage their one time for the year, and getting their drink on.
This day also marks the 91st anniversary of the birth of the greatest natural baseball player who ever lived. A player so remarkable that the natural right handed hitter taught himself how to switch hit in the minors, and it only took him a couple weeks to get the hang of it.
He learned to hit lefty to take advantage of his blazing speed and after the switch, he would often beat out routine ground balls for base hits.
One of the greatest managers (and characters) in baseball history, Leo Durocher, said that this player was the only player he ever saw who was better than Willie Mays! This guy would hit line drives all over the field, and once proclaimed that he “could hit any pitcher that ever threw a baseball.”
This player could run, hit for average (in his rookie year, he won the National League batting title with a .343 average!), and hit for power. In that rookie season at age 22, he also led the league in runs scored (117), doubles (39), triples (17), slugging percentage (.558), OPS (.968) and had an OPS+ of 169. He banged out 14 home runs, too.
He was Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Albert Pujols all wrapped into a solid 5’11”, 185 lb frame.
His defense was beyond reproach. He had a cannon for an arm, and later in his career the natural right handed thrower even taught himself how to throw left handed. He played shortstop in the minors and center field during his major league career, and rarely, if ever, did not track down a ball that was staying in the park.
Players on other teams would watch the outfield drills and marvel at his throws to third and homeplate.
He stated that he would stand in center field thinking to himself, “Hit it to me, Hit it to me.” He wanted the ball on every pitch, every play.
And that desire to succeed at all costs cost this player his rightful place in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
This players name was Harold Patrick (Pete) Reiser.
Reiser was signed by the Cardinals at age 15 after he attended a local tryout camp. He was cut after the first day, and went home disappointed. The Cardinals scout showed up at the Reiser household later that day and told Pete’s father they cut young Pete because they didn’t want other teams to see how good he was, and that they had their eye on him since he was 12!
Durocher said in his autobiography, Nice Guys Finish Last: “There will never be a ballplayer as good as Willie Mays, but Reiser was every bit as good, and he might have been better. Pete Reiser might have been the best ballplayer I ever saw. He had more power that Willie. He could throw as good as Willie. Mays was fast, but Reiser was faster. Name whoever you want to, and Pete Reiser was faster. Willie Mays had everything. Pete Reiser had everything but luck.”
And that was the problem. Reiser was always bitten by the injury bug, actually not bitten, but destroyed by the bug. And Pete brought it on himself, by going all out on every play, in every game, no matter the score or where the Dodgers were in the standings.
The play that basically ended Pete’s career came in 1942 at St. Louis’ Sportsman’s Park, when in the 13th inning of a 0-0 pitchers duel between Whitlow Wyatt of the Brooklyn Dodgers and Mort Cooper of the St. Louis Cardinals, Reiser tried to chase down an Enos Slaughter drive to center field. He had it but ran full speed into the concrete wall, and the ball came loose. Reiser picked up the ball, threw it to Pee Wee Reese and they almost got Slaughter at home.
Reiser then collapsed on the field. He had a severe concussion and a fractured skull. How he threw that ball back to Reese is anybody’s guess.
At the time of that crash, the Dodgers held a 13 1/2 game lead on the Cardinals. But going all out was Pete’s style of play.
He was not supposed to play the remainder of the season, but that was not Pete’s way. He played after getting out of the hospital, lined a game winning single and collapsed again after rounding first base.
At the time of that crash and coming off of his awesome 1941 rookie campaign, Reiser and the Dodgers finished up two series on the western road trip in Chicago and Cincinnati. Pete has gone 19 for 21 in those games and was hitting .380. He eventually played again that season, but his average dropped to .310, and he was never the same player.
That was the worst wall crash, but it was not the only one. He was carted off the field 11 times in his career, and was once given last rites at the stadium.
Reiser was signed by the Cardinals but was granted free agency during one of Commissioner Landis’ purging of the Cardinals minor league system. Branch Rickey at the time had that vast minor league system and he was trying to keep Pete off the radar of the other teams.
Pete was signed by the Dodgers GM Larry MacPhail, grandfather of current Baltimore Orioles President Andy MacPhail. Some people say that Rickey broached MacPhail about Reiser and that the Dodgers would keep for three years and then they would trade Reiser back to St. Louis. In 1940 Cardinals star outfielder Joe Medwick was traded to Brooklyn in a big deal, which a player to be named later was going back to St. Louis.
Reiser was that player to be named later, but the Cardinals took more money instead.
But Pete’s play on the field did not allow that backroom deal to be completed.
Pete’s first taste of big league spring training was in 1939 when he was with the Dodgers. Durocher was in his first season as Dodger manager and immediately took a liking to Reiser. It was similar to the Casey Stengel – Mickey Mantle relationship a decade later. The hard nosed Reiser was Leo’s type of player.
Late in the Spring, Resier finally gets a chance to play and hits a three run homer his first time up, draws a walk, then hits two more singles. The next day Reiser singles, hits another three run homer, beats out a drag bunt and then wallops another homer. He leads off the next day with another line drive single!
His was 8 for 8 with a walk and three homes his first nine times up against major league pitching. Everybody was talking about “MacPhail’s Wonder Child” and after the Spring the Dodgers barnstormed north with the New York Yankees.
Yankee manager Joe McCarthy proclaimed about Reiser “you need only one look at the boy to know he is a hitter.” On that trip north Reiser said McCarthy told him the Yankees wanted to trade for Pete to make him their steady third baseman. That might have been the best thing for Reiser as he would never have run into those outfield walls.
But like that proposed trade back to St. Louis, the Yankee deal never happened, and Reiser played two years in the minors until he was brought up in 1940. Reiser was a shortstop then but was told by MacPhail that if he wanted to play in the big leagues, he would have to play center field.
And then after that great rookie campaign, it was all downhill.
A great career was not in the cards for Pete Reiser. What if’s are the real story of Reiser. What if he was traded back to the Cardinals or what if he was traded to the Yankees? What if he didn’t go all out in an extra inning game with a 13 ½ game lead?
His career would have been long and Hall of Fame quality.
When I was a kid, my favorite ballplayers were Pete Rose and Thurman Munson, primarily for their style of play. At this time in the 1970’s I used to read dozens of baseball books about baseball’s vast and storied history. When I came across the exploits of Reiser, I had a third favorite player added to the list.
In 1981, Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included Reiser 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.
Back in the 1960’s, author David Markson had some fun described Pete’s HOF plaque as having retired with 4,197 hits, a .364 career batting average, including three seasons over .400. He also “won” 11 batting titles, was voted player of the decade in the 1940’s and the 1950’s, and accumulated more hits, runs scored, doubles and total bases than any player in history.
There is no telling how many “counting stats” Reiser would have accumulated, but he would have had a great and storied career. The injuries and his three missed years to the war took their toll on his play.
And that was sad for the game of baseball.
Tags: Brooklyn Dodgers, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Pete Reiser, St. Louis Cardinals, St. Patrick's Day, Willie Mays
March 17th, 2010 at 9:40 pm
I’d like to take this time to stake my claim as the greatest natural songwriter of all-time.
March 17th, 2010 at 10:22 pm
The Dodgers never padded their outfied fences despite his propensity for running into them and he never learned like Snider. Mays, and Mantle not to run into them.Most players came back from the war and resumed their careers just fine like his teammate Reese, Joe D, Ted Williams and Greenberg. I think the guy who was the greatest natural player was Mantle. He ran a 3.1 down to first, punished the hell out of the ball and had a great career despite injuries, not taking care of himself and refusing to cut down his swing a little, I liked Mickey but you gotte think what could have been…
March 17th, 2010 at 10:31 pm
The wall he crashed into in 1942 was in St. Louis.
March 17th, 2010 at 11:32 pm
I didn’t read this yet, but the title alone makes me want to declare this entire article bullshit.
I’ll be back once I read it though
March 17th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
Nice article.
I’d say the greatest natural baseball player of all time was Harry Streptinevis, night watchman at the Vermicelli Bros rendering plant based out of Rancho Cucamonga, California.
He’s 27 years old, and his mother couldn’t afford little league sign-up fees, so he never picked up a baseball in his life.
But boy… he would have been something.
Best guess is that he would have hit around 1,200 home runs, with between 5,240 and 5,250 hits.
March 18th, 2010 at 12:50 am
I, for one, enjoyed the article. I just can’t wrap my mind around a claim that revolves around one season, a couple of comments by an over-complimentary manager, and a back-handed deal that never came about. Joe Charbonneau, Ron Kittle, Kevin Maas, Mark Fidrych, Tony Conigliaro, etc. had great starts to their careers as well. How about all of the quotes surrounding Eric Davis being the second coming of Willie Mays? Alfonso Soriano was Hank Aaron. Hell, even Harold Miner was Baby Jordan, though I think he could actually hit a curveball.
Maybe the most naturally talented baseball player ever was Bo Jackson. Or Bobby Valentine. Or Josh Gibson. We’ll never know…
March 18th, 2010 at 3:30 am
Thank you for the article, I did not really know his story.
March 18th, 2010 at 6:12 am
“Greatest Natural Player” is obviously subjective, so we’re all allowed an opinion. Reiser is a good candidate if you’re willing to accept limited evidence due to a short career. It’s a shame it took so long to pad outfield fences… nice article.
The article reminds me of another outfielder – Kirk Gibson – who had tremendous natural ability (except for an awful arm, I can’t believe Sparky played him in center and right sometimes). Gibson never lost his football player mentality and his aggressive play landed him on the DL often.
Richard, you may recall that Anderson called Gibson the next Mickey Mantle, to add to your list.
March 18th, 2010 at 9:23 am
Reiser crashed into more than one wall. He also was given last rites several times.. He actually pinch hit in a WS game with a broken leg. According to people that saw him, he had all the tools but getting hurt so fiten got in the way. Richard has a valid point about BO. Among pithcers, it was probably Herb Score who struck out 245 and 264 his first two. Among the guys I saw from the beginning, it was probably Bo and Tannana. Tananna had great stuff and control but hurt his arm and was relied on soft stuff after that..
March 18th, 2010 at 9:45 am
Great article! I throughly enjoyed it! One of the greatest debates that I love about Baseball is “what might have been.” Mantle (injuries, lifestyle), Williams (WWII and Korean War), Koufax (injurires), Bo Jackson (injury playing Football). Reiser belongs right there with them.
March 18th, 2010 at 9:48 am
Hossrex, I totally agree. It is hard not to look at Harry Steptinevis and not go starry-eyed wondering “what if.”
And Joe, regarding Reiser, I have to say (pardon the pun), that it really ain’t so. Natural ability, yes, Reiser had it. Maybe more than Mays and Mantle. Maybe even more than Harry (though I doubt it). Keep in mind, Duroucher played alongside Ruth during the latter end of Ruth’s great years, and because he personally disliked the Babe, he never considered the Babe in his list of great players. As such, I make the claim that Durocher’s judgement was a little suspect.
As for Reiser, he really cannot be put in the same class as Smoky Joe, because Smoky Joe did not destroy his arm doing something stupid. He did it by pitching. Think about it, even if the great outfield wall crash of 1942 had not happened, Reiser would have just hit another wall later on. After all, he was carted off the field, by your own claim, ten more times after that. The man did not learn. I have often looked at Reiser’s career, and read books about him, and wondered just what was wrong with him.
Baseball is about more than simple natural ability. One of the most underrated aspects of playing the game is what they used to call “baseball intelligence.” If you read interviews with the peers of Babe Ruth, one of the comments they make is about his “baseball intelligence.” His knowledge of the game. Knowing when to go first to third on a single to right, and when to hold up at second. It would seem to me that not sacrificing your entire career for one almost meaningless play, when your team is 13 games in front, would qualify.
Think about it … all of those RBI’s Reiser could have had, if he had simply played the outfield with a little sense of caution. All of those game-saving catches he could have made. All those seasons when he might have been a serious contributor to his team. Think about how Reiser actually hurt the Dodgers by not being able to play at his full capacity, because of his inability to reason out that one play in an irrelevant game was not worth a career. As such, I consider him a player who was almost a detriment to his team, but who managed to have one great season in spite of himself.
March 18th, 2010 at 10:08 am
At the risk of sounding snide, being the greatest at anything involves physical skill and intelligence. A player who continues to run into walls has a deficit in the second.
March 18th, 2010 at 10:42 am
Harry Steptinevis… I wonder if anyone from the Mets is reading this. If so I bet they’ve already inquired about him.
March 18th, 2010 at 11:28 am
Just like Sid Finch!
March 18th, 2010 at 11:33 am
Hyperbole is not your friend.
Crap, we’re down to What If stories? How many of those can be written? 100,000?
March 18th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Dick Wakefield Detroit Tigers during 1940’s comes to mind. Never really lived up to his potential.
March 18th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
For that matter, I can think of a few U.S. presidents who never lived up to their potential. And the current guy is trying to pay the other homage by not living up to his.
March 18th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
No politics, Brad.
March 18th, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Rex, how the hell did you come up with that? Names are hilarious.
March 18th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
Given how great Mickey Mantle managed to be while realizing only a limited amount of his potential, I think it’s highly unlikely that Reiser’s natural ability was greater. And that’s even if you for some reason rule out Babe Ruth.
An all might-have-been team would be an interesting thing to put together. There would certainly be no shortage of pitchers, including Herb Score, Smokey Joe Wood, Doc Gooden, and J.R. Richard. On the position player side, a partial list would include Reiser, Eric Davis, Kirk Gibson, Fred Lynn, Tony Conigliaro, Hal Trosky, Dickie Thon, and Ray Chapman.
March 18th, 2010 at 7:43 pm
Why would/should Doc Gooden and Eric Davis (and a host of others) be on anyone’s “unfulfilled” list?
They both inhaled more snow than the annual accumulation of Anchorage. Their respective lack of fulfillment is self-induced.
If they’re looking for a ride on the sympathy train, sorry, it already left the station.
March 18th, 2010 at 7:54 pm
Chuck – To me, the list is what guys would have done if they stayed healthy. Gooden would have had a somewhat better career without the drugs, but it was mostly arm trouble that kept him from being what he could have been.
As far as Davis, I’m not actually aware of any substantiated allegations of him doing drugs, although I could have missed that, and it wouldn’t really surprise me given the company he kept. But he was one of the very most talented players I’ve ever seen, and it was clearly relentless injuries that kept him from living up to that, regardless of anything else.
I didn’t realize we were discussing who should be the most-sympathized-with players.
March 18th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Ok, sure.
Arm trouble from the fact he was always too stoned to throw his bullpens or do his leg work.
March 18th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
I think we are talking about apples and oranges…an all-injured list is different from an all-wasted talent list. Gooden and Strawberry top the latter list for sure.
March 18th, 2010 at 10:48 pm
I have an issue with the article in general, not so much the topic but the subject. I won’t say anything else because of the respect I have for Joe, but this article could be written about a thousand guys.
But Richard’s point is a good one, as is mine, obviously.
Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry would be Hall of Famers excepting of their own devices. Pete Reiser running into a dozen brick walls is different. Tony Conigliaro getting beaned is different. Thurman Munson dying at 32 is different.
Those guys had no choice or control over what happened to them.
Gooden and Strawberry did.
Everybody reading this article would give five years off their lives to have the opportunity to play one game in the major leagues.
These two schmucks pissed away millions of dollars and a never ending legacy for nothing.
Screw ‘em both.
March 18th, 2010 at 11:36 pm
I saw Josh Hamilton on TV yesterday and in person today and he hit two balls that went at least 900 feet combined, one off a lefty.
The Rangers are my pick for the wild card, but if he’s healthy, watch out Seattle.
March 19th, 2010 at 2:14 am
I would give my last five years, my brand new truck, and give up steak for the rest of my life to play one game in the show. I had a tryout for the Reds back in 87, and lets just say that the guy they picked to go to camp was far, far better than me, and he was cut the first day.
I met a guy named Willie Warrecker in New Haven, he pitched in the Angels organization as a lefty. He left the organization in High A ball, sporting an ERA under 4, and was thought to have a future as a lefty specialist, but he was told he would have to toil in the minors for years, and gain command over his pitches, while the team moved him up slowly. Instead, he went to Medical school, and now he is Dr. William Warrecker. I asked him how he could give up on the dream so quickly, and he said that he told himself he’d try it, and if it doesn’t work out, he’s got Med School to fall back on. I just couldn’t believe he would leave the game for Med School. Some guys just don’t have the passion.
March 19th, 2010 at 2:28 am
Durcher idn like bab Rith cause Ruth acused im of stealinghis watch and mone when they played for the Yankees.
Maybe as much or or ehtneany manager, Duroche relentlessly praised his own young players
He was right about Willie Mays
He hyped Cesar Cesdeno as the mext Willie Mays as the next Willie mays adn he wasn right.
And he did a crapyjob of managing the 69 Cubs.
The greatest players in NL history?
Mays, Bonds, Musial, Aaron, Wagner and Schmidt are (I beleve) the short list…Pujols may ne well ve there ina few years.
My personal preference is for Mays or Aaron. They didn t run into walls.
Reiser is on the what if…list
The Mets ke abot Gooden s drug problems when he was stll in high school, befre the minors, but they looked the wother was when he made the club. And I tink (other then the drugs, why he was a whatif…was becuse Mel Stottlemyre scewed with Gooden s delivery.
I still remember Doc s 1985 season. as good as it gets….
March 19th, 2010 at 2:30 am
There are twoother choices fo the greatest natural playe of all time
Roy Hobbs
Joe Hardy from Hannibal Mo.
March 19th, 2010 at 2:37 am
Richard: “I had a tryout for the Reds back in 87″
My father was invited to a Reds Tryout camp in (I think) 72. He was a hell of a player. Lefty hitting centerfielder who threw from the right side, lots of power to pull, and an amazing defensive skill set until the last game of beer league softball we both played in when he was 50.
He could make it to the Reds tryout camp because his draft number was so low he had to join the Air-Force to stay out of Vietnam (he had a college deferment for one year, but couldn’t afford Purdue a second year).
So he was sent to Vandenberg Airforce base to learn how to track satellites.
Six years later I was born.
The worst part for him was that he didn’t even get his tryout. His little brother played a handful of years in the low levels of the Twins organization.
His whole life was one big “could I have?”
Because of Vietnam.
March 19th, 2010 at 2:38 am
“He could make it”
Should unfortunately read:
“He couldn’t make it”
March 19th, 2010 at 6:03 am
Well i feel badly for men who were cheated out of dreams like that, but I would not trade the store for ‘1 day in the Big Show” or anything like it. It may not be a lack of passion, but a realistic assessment for the chance of significant success, AND different values about what is really important. The choice of Medical School over only a 1/2 way decent chance for a limited measure of success in pro ball over the long run may be much more gratifying. And productive for them, & society.
March 19th, 2010 at 7:27 am
I get the feeling Hossrex’s pops has uttered “China Man” at least once.
Ok, relax. I’m just kidding.
March 19th, 2010 at 7:56 am
lol… you should have heard my fathers father (who was fighting in Korea, and missed the birth of my father). The phrase “didn’t drop nearly enough bombs on that country” was uttered quite frequently.
The funny part it… “that country” would change all the time.
Interestingly, I’m pretty much the perfect age to have been called up after September 11th, if there had been a draft in place (I was 22 at the time).
Funny how wars work that way. Reminds me of the scene in Forrest Gump, where we see all of Lieutenant Dan’s ancestors dying in war.
My dads dad died just a handful of years ago to diabetes.
Oh well. Pretty off topic. Sorry. Next time I’ll tell the much funnier story about my mothers parents, who had a Christmas town set up as part of their decorations, and their “black friends” (that’s what they called them) gave them crap about how “only white folk allowed in Betty’s Christmas village I see.” My grandmother went out the next day and bought a whole bunch of little black porcelain miniatures, just so her “black friends” (again, that’s what she called them), didn’t think she was racist.
March 19th, 2010 at 9:06 am
Good article. I would say that Mantle or Martin Dihigo were the most talented natural players of all-time but this was a good way to bring Reiser’s talents and abbreviated career to light.
March 19th, 2010 at 9:18 am
LOL @ Hossrex
March 19th, 2010 at 10:05 am
Good article. There are plenty of would-haves and could-haves in baseball history, but you can certainly make the case for Pete Reiser being in the top echelon of that category. True, Leo the Lip loved to hawk his players, but he put Reiser and Mays at the top, which put Reiser ahead of plenty of Hall-Of-Famers (Ernie Banks, Billy Williams,and Joe Medwick, to name a few).
March 19th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Hey Freddy, Omar and the Mets passed up on Steptinevis. But if his name was Steptinequez he’d be a lock!
March 19th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Well then it must be a friggin miracle Jason Bay signed with the Mets.
Or you think it was Jason Baez?
March 19th, 2010 at 5:16 pm
What my grandpa said about Reiser was that he was one of the best he ever saw.It’s funny he also compared him to Mays.
March 20th, 2010 at 8:29 am
My God, the man wrote an article. It was interesting. Then out come all the morons to say something along the lines of “what’s the point of this article” – if you dont like it then dont read it.
March 21st, 2010 at 8:54 am
As a die hard Mets fan, it killed me when the drugs stories came out. We thought they were going to be our Wihtey and Mickey. Stottleyre blew it screwing aorund with hie delivery. The reason behind it was runners were getting a big jump on him. Carter said his fastball lost alot of life. During the mid 1980s, drugs were all over .. I worked on Wall Street at the time and people were doing coke all the time…it is not an excuse for doing it but it was not like they were the only people of that era tooting. One thing about Strawberry was he was only an offensive player. For a guy with speed and a great arm, he was one of the worst outfielders I ever saw.. when you see less talented guys like Roy White and Pinella better than him, it spoke volumes about his dedication. The same can be true of Reggie who nver found a cutoof man he liked and misjudged more flyballs than anyone… Gooden would have been something.. As great as his second year was, 1984 was incredible.. his curveball was incredible and he was making the best hitters look bad…
March 23rd, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Jimmy Vac: “During the mid 1980s, drugs were all over .. I worked on Wall Street at the time”
Forever, to me, Jimmy Vac will always be Charlie Sheen.
March 23rd, 2010 at 4:17 pm
You have to read an article before you decide if you like it or not, genius.
But the good news is I think we’ve identified the idiot.