Jake Pitler

{{Short description|American baseball player and coach (1894–1968)}}

{{Infobox baseball biography

| name = Jake Pitler

| image =

| caption =

| position = Second baseman

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1894|4|22}}

| birth_place = New York City, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|1968|2|3|1894|4|22}}

| death_place = Binghamton, New York, U.S.

| bats =Right

| throws = Right

|debutleague = MLB

| debutdate =May 30

| debutyear =1917

| debutteam =Pittsburgh Pirates

|finalleague = MLB

| finaldate =May 24

| finalyear =1918

| finalteam =Pittsburgh Pirates

|statleague = MLB

| stat1label = Batting average

| stat1value =.232

| stat2label =Home runs

| stat2value =0

| stat3label =Runs batted in

| stat3value =23

| teams =

As player

Pittsburgh Pirates (1917–1918)

As coach

Brooklyn Dodgers (1947–1957)

| highlights =

World Series champion ({{wsy|1955}})

}}

Jacob Albert Pitler (April 22, 1894 – February 3, 1968) was an American second baseman and longtime coach in Major League Baseball. Born in New York City, and Jewish,{{cite journal |title=Big League Jews|journal=Jewish Sports Review |date=January–February 2020 |volume=12 |issue=137 |page=20}}{{cite book|title=Jews and Baseball: Volume 1, Entering the American Mainstream, 1871-1948|author1=Boxerman, B.A.|author2=Boxerman, B.W.|date=2006|publisher=McFarland & Company|isbn=9780786428281|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qJEQTaE7JEAC|page=51|access-date=2015-01-06}} he moved with his family to Western Pennsylvania when he was a boy, and he grew up in Beaver Falls and Pittsburgh.[https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/jake-pitler/ Bard, Stan, Jake Pitler], Society for American Baseball Research Biography Project

Baseball career

Pitler stood {{convert|5|ft|8|in}} tall, weighed {{convert|150|lb}} and batted and threw right-handed. He began his professional playing career in {{Baseball year|1913}} at Jackson of the Class C Southern Michigan Association. When that league disbanded in {{Baseball year|1915}}, Pitler was picked up by the Chattanooga Lookouts of the Class A Southern Association. He was batting a healthy .364 in 42 games when his contract was purchased by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the midseason of {{Baseball year|1917}} during the World War I manpower crisis. He played in 109 games for Pittsburgh that season, and two contests in {{Baseball year|1918}}, compiling a .232 average in 383 at bats with no home runs and 23 runs batted in. Pitler holds the record for most putouts in a game by a second baseman, with 15, made in a 22-inning game on August 22, 1917. After rejecting a minor-league assignment in early 1918, Pitler left the ranks of "organized baseball" for almost a decade.

During much of the 1920s, Pitler played in semi-professional or "outlaw" leagues. But in {{Baseball year|1928}}, he joined the Binghamton Triplets of the New York–Pennsylvania League and became a fixture in that circuit, playing also for Elmira and Hazleton, and beginning his managing career in {{Baseball year|1934}} with Scranton.

In {{Baseball year|1939}}, Pitler joined the Brooklyn Dodgers as a minor league manager, winning back-to-back pennants with the Olean Oilers of the PONY League in 1939–40. He was promoted to the Dodger coaching staff in {{Baseball year|1947}} and remained a member of it through the end of the team's stay in Brooklyn in {{Baseball year|1957}} — through six National League championships and Brooklyn's lone world title, which came in {{Baseball year|1955}}.

Pitler usually served as Brooklyn's first-base coach and worked under Dodger managers Leo Durocher, Burt Shotton, Chuck Dressen and Walter Alston. He appeared in Roger Kahn's memoir The Boys of Summer as a somewhat obsequious aide to Dressen. But with his minor league managing background, he was also hailed as a fatherly figure to Dodger rookies and young players. He was cited for that role in poet Marianne Moore's paean to the 1955 champions, Hometown Piece for Messrs. Alston and Reese.[https://web.archive.org/web/20121026033707/http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1146578/1/index.htm Hometown Piece for Messrs. Alston and Reese by Marianne Moore]

Pitler retired as a coach after the {{baseball year|1957}} season rather than move with the Dodgers to Los Angeles, but continued his association with the team as a scout. He died in Binghamton, New York, in {{Baseball year|1968}} at the age of 73.{{cite news|title=Jake Pitler Dies Upstate at 73; Ex-Coach of Brooklyn Dodgers - Gifted Counselor and Scout Began as Minor-League Player and Manager|url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/02/04/88922805.html?pageNumber=81|access-date=11 September 2016|newspaper=New York Times|date=February 4, 1968|page=81}} In 1991, he was inducted into the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in Pittsburgh.