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The Original Louisville Slugger: The Life and Times of Forgotten Baseball Legend Pete Browning
By: Tim Newby
FROM:
The Original Louisville Slugger: The Life and Times of
Forgotten Baseball Legend Pete Browning
By: Tim Newby
Pete was an old-style hitter, as he liked to swing away. “It’s my place to hit ’em out,” he asserted. “I’m not a bunter.”[i] Throughout his career, as he strode to the plate lugging one of his immense bats, he whispered words of encouragement to it, wetting his right forefinger as he reached under his hat to plaster the long, loose hairs to his brow before unleashing his mighty swing. That swing was “always an object of worry to opposing pitchers” and one of the most feared of the nineteenth century, as it led to some of the most statistically dominant seasons of the era.[ii] It was also a threat to many a third baseman. “I have come pretty near killing several third basemen,” boasted Pete. “It makes ’em shaky when Old Pete goes to the bat. They know he pulls ’em around third and they don’t like it.”[iii] The Washington Post wrote, “There were shortstops and third basemen more intent on protecting their shins from one of his scorching grounders than they were with throwing him out at first and when the Gladiator came to bat the outfielders went back to the fence.”[iv]
Pete was the Paul Bunyan of nineteenth-century baseball, as the stories and myths surrounding him grew to epic proportions. The Atlanta Constitution claimed that Pete “knocks two or three balls so far every season that they are never found.”[v] Stories of Pete’s legendary bat control were embellished over the years with a flourish of imagination, adding to the slugger’s legacy. In a game in 1888 against Cincinnati and pitcher Lee Viau, Pete, who was an expert at fouling off pitches until he got one he liked, fouled off 12 in a row. Zach Phelps, one of the owners of the club, stood up and shouted, “Stop that nonsense Browning and smash the ball.” Pete, never one to do what he was told, fouled off the next pitch in the direction of Phelps in the owner’s box. The ball whizzed past Phelps and tore through the hat he was waving in his hand. Pete stepped out of the box, looked up at Phelps, and yelled, “Well, I smashed it boss!”[vi]
These stories became even more unbelievable after Pete retired. Many of the tall tales were perpetuated by Pete himself, who was a good storyteller, although his stories often stretched the fabric of the truth a bit. One can only imagine Pete in a social media world, where his legendary postgame rants and diatribes could reach millions.
Pete was famous for saying he kept the carpenters busy all season with the number of balls he drove through the outfield fence, proclaiming, “Old Pete, he sure did git his bingles in this day. He done druv’ one of ’em clar thru the center field fence.”[vii] In his typical braggadocious manner, he called a home run he hit in 1882 in an exhibition in Atlantic City an “all-around the world hit” that was still going. Over the years, that home run was remembered as a shot that “cleared the fence and landed in the ocean 100 yards beyond.”[viii] This representation of Pete’s power was no exaggeration, as he regularly launched balls that staggered belief.
This image of Pete as a superhuman who bashed balls all over the planet became a common theme in the Browning mythology. “There was no ball player then or since who could drive the ball so great a distance as could this queer genius,” insisted the Butte Miner in 1908. “He was known as the hardest hitting man in the world. Not you understand, on account of the number of hits that he would make, but on account of the terrific manner in which he would strike the spheroid and the distance he would send it, after landing on it.”[ix] According to one story, Pete got ahold of a low fastball around his knees and launched it through a big load of hay stacked on the farm behind the field. It didn’t “drop to the ground until it struck the next county, where it was found embedded in a brick wall about a foot deep.”[x]
Sportswriters of the era romanticized his trips to the plate and wrote about them in glowing terms. One recalled, “The Gladiator was careful in picking out a stick” before unleashing a swing with his “black hickory,” sending the ball “on a line to the left field seats” for a home run.[xi] When Pete’s bat met the ball, the result was rarely an infield hit, where he beat out the throw to first base by a nose or scampered to safety on a Texas League blooper that landed just out of the outfielders’ reach. Pete’s hits were the real thing—doubles and triples—made even more impressive given the poor quality of baseballs at the time. They were the same size and weight of modern baseballs, but with a rubber center as opposed to cork. This made it much harder to drive the ball for distance. Generally, only one ball was used throughout a game, and balls hit out of play were retrieved and reused. By the end of the game, the ball was a mushy mess, stained with dirt and tobacco juice and with the stitching coming apart, making it difficult to see, let alone hit it any distance.
In 1905, long after he retired, Pete’s legend with the bat was not diminished. The Louisville newspaper continued to sing the praises of the hometown hero, calling him “a natural batsman of vast ability and supreme self-confidence. He quaked before no pitcher. The smoothest curve or the fastest delivery were all the same to him. Carrying a huge bat, far heavier than they wield in these degenerate days, he would stride to the plate, pick out one that suited him and whang that leather with a crash that could be heard three miles away.”[xii]
In the premodern era of few fences, large fields, no gloves, and poor fielding, players were far more likely to get on base simply by putting the ball into play rather than swinging away.
Players did not want to risk striking out with big swings, especially in ballparks where the odds of an out-of-the-park home run were limited by distant or nonexistent fences. Instead, players choked up on the bat and relied on a more contact-oriented approach at the plate. “Sacrifice hitting is becoming more common in a winning team than long drives,” explained the Louisville Courier-Journal in 1888. “A manager would rather have in his team a good sacrifice hitter than a man who drives out long hits. A man who can bunt the ball and make a sacrifice hit is worth four sluggers who hit the ball occasionally, and will win twice as many games.”[xiii] In that era of controlled contact hitting, Pete’s display of power was frightening, yet it belies how truly skilled he was at the plate, where he was regularly hailed for his instinctive approach.
Pete thought about hitting above all else. “He goes to bed with it uppermost in his thoughts, and takes singles, doubles, and triples for breakfast, dinner, and supper,” wrote the Cincinnati Enquirer.[xiv] One of the thoughts he expressed over the years was that left-handed pitchers should be banned from the game. The reasoning for this radical change was mostly a personal one, as Pete sometimes struggled to hit southpaw hurlers.
To Pete, baseball was an art, and batting was his passion; he was a maestro with the bat. When he left the field, the game was not over for him. He continued to talk about batting, theorize about batting, come up with new ideas about batting, and dream about batting at night. He was remembered for the pleasure the simple yet difficult act of hitting a baseball brought him. One teammate said, “I never saw a player who liked to hit the ball like Pete Browning. One day when the Gladiator made three hits, it was next to impossible to hold him in the carriage coming away from the park. Old Pete was like one intoxicated with joy. He would sing, laugh, and hailoo at everybody on the street.”[xv]
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[i] “Stories about Pete Browning,” Louisville Courier-Journal, June 12, 1905, 6.
[ii] “Pete Browning a Noted Character,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 11, 1905, 9.
[iii] “Base Ball Gossip,” Cincinnati Enquirer, July 12, 1891, 10.
[iv] “Pete Browning Slugger,” Washington Post, September 12, 1905, 8.
[v] “Diamond Jottings,” Atlanta Constitution, March 1, 1885, 13.
[vi] A. H. Tarvin Papers, 1838–1949, National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, NY
[vii] “When Pete Browning Was Defender of Aristocracy,” Butte (MT) Miner, March 15, 1908, 16.
[viii] “Stories of Old Pete Browning,” Louisville Courier-Journal, October 15, 1905, 31.
[ix] “When Pete Browning Was Defender of Aristocracy,” 16.
[x] “Base Ball Notes,” Washington Evening Star, April 25, 1901, 9.
[xi] “Won by the Umpire,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 11, 1889, 4.
[xii] “Stories about Pete Browning,” 6.
[xiii] “Notes on the Games,” Louisville Courier-Journal, July 23, 1888, 2.
[xiv] “Pietro Browning and His Average—Other Matters,” Cincinnati Enquirer, October 18, 1891, 2.
[xv] “Base-ball Notes,” Cincinnati Enquirer, February 9, 1890, 16.
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