Antonio Joseph Vitelli (April 12, 1908 – February 7, 1967) was a

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

who played for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1944 and 1945. The , right-hander was a native of

McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania McKees Rocks, also known as "The Rocks", is a borough in Allegheny County in western Pennsylvania, along the south bank of the Ohio River. The population was 5,920 at the time of the 2020 census. It is part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. In ...

. Vitelli is one of many ballplayers who only appeared in the major leagues during World War II. He made his

major league debut Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

at age 36 on May 30, 1944 in a doubleheader against the Brooklyn Dodgers at

Ebbets Field Ebbets Field was a Major League Baseball stadium in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York. It is mainly known for having been the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team of the National League (1913–1957). It was also home to five pro ...

. The Pirates' game on May 21 was suspended due to the Sunday blue laws and completed on July 5. The game was suspended after 8 innings; Vitelli participated in the 9th inning played July 5. He appeared in the final inning of suspended game, but since statistical data is labeled with the original date of the game, some sources list his debut as May 21. Vitelli made four relief appearances for Pittsburgh in 1944 and finished all four games. In a total of seven innings pitched he gave up six runs, but only two of them were

earned runs In baseball, an earned run is any run that was fully enabled by the offensive team's production in the face of competent play from the defensive team. Conversely, an unearned run is a run that would not have been scored without the aid of an erro ...

. His

ERA An era is a span of time defined for the purposes of chronology or historiography, as in the regnal eras in the history of a given monarchy, a calendar era used for a given calendar, or the geological eras defined for the history of Earth. Comp ...

was 2.57. His only 1945 appearance was as a pinch runner. Vitelli died in 1967 in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

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1908 births 1967 deaths Baseball players from Pennsylvania Major League Baseball pitchers People from McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh Pirates players {{US-baseball-pitcher-1900s-stub