Kent Franklin Peterson (December 21, 1925 – April 27, 1995) was an American

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Modern professional ...

player Player may refer to: Role or adjective * Player (game), a participant in a game or sport ** Gamer, a player in video and tabletop games ** Athlete, a player in sports ** Player character, a character in a video game or role playing game who ...

. The

left-handed In human biology, handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand, known as the dominant hand, due to it being stronger, faster or more dextrous. The other hand, comparatively often the weaker, less dextrous or simply less subject ...

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 ...

appeared in 147 games during all or part of eight seasons in

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), ...

(1944, 1947–53) for the Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies. Born in

Goshen, Utah Goshen is a town in Utah County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Provo–Orem Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 921 at the 2010 census. History The first settlement at Goshen was made in 1857 by a colony of Mormon pi ...

, he was listed as tall and . Peterson signed with Cincinnati in and worked in one MLB game for the Reds that season, hurling a scoreless inning against the future

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World ...

champion

St. Louis Cardinals The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals ha ...

and retiring the Redbirds in order on July 15. He then entered the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

and performed

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

military service, missing the full seasons of – 46. At age 21 he returned to the Reds in and was a "swing man", splitting his time between starting and

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

assignments, through . Pitching for a second-division team, Peterson was able to win only 12 of 45 decisions over those three years, a

winning percentage In sports, a winning percentage is the fraction of games or matches a team or individual has won. The statistic is commonly used in standings or rankings to compare teams or individuals. It is defined as wins divided by the total number of match ...

of .267. In , he won two games while losing 15, finishing third in the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...

in games lost. That year Peterson also led the league in

hit batsmen In baseball, hit by pitch (HBP) is an event in which a batter or his clothing or equipment (other than his bat) is struck directly by a pitch from the pitcher; the batter is called a hit batsman (HB). A hit batsman is awarded first base, provided ...

with six in only 137 innings pitched. In , his won–lost record improved to 4–5 in 30 games, but his

earned run average In baseball statistics, earned run average (ERA) is the average of earned runs allowed by a pitcher per nine innings pitched (i.e. the traditional length of a game). It is determined by dividing the number of earned runs allowed by the number ...

rose to an ineffective 6.24. It would be Peterson's last full season in the majors. In , the Reds sent Peterson him to the

minor leagues Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in No ...

for the first time in his pro career, and he posted a winning record for Triple-A Syracuse. He split time between Cincinnati and the minors in 1950 and , then was traded with

outfielder An outfielder is a person playing in one of the three defensive positions in baseball or softball, farthest from the batter. These defenders are the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder. As an outfielder, their duty is to c ...

Johnny Wyrostek John Barney Wyrostek (July 12, 1919 – December 12, 1986) was an American professional baseball player. He played all or part of eleven seasons in the Major League Baseball between 1942 and 1954 primarily as an outfielder, most often in right or ...

to the Phillies for

right-handed In human biology, handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand, known as the dominant hand, due to it being stronger, faster or more dextrous. The other hand, comparatively often the weaker, less dextrous or simply less subjecti ...

Bubba Church in May 1952. The Phillies used him in 18 games in relief during and , sandwiched along with stints in Triple-A. In his final appearance on July 18, 1953, he worked three innings of "mop-up" relief against his former team, Cincinnati. He then played at the top level of the minors through 1956 before leaving baseball. In the majors, Peterson posted a career record of 13 wins and 38 losses (.255) in his 147 MLB games on the mound, with seven complete games, one

shutout In team sports, a shutout ( US) or clean sheet ( UK) is a game in which one team prevents the other from scoring any points. While possible in most major sports, they are highly improbable in some sports, such as basketball. Shutouts are usuall ...

(a five-hit, 1–0 triumph over the Cardinals on June 12, 1947), and five saves. In 420 innings pitched, he allowed 434 hits and 215 bases on balls, with 208 strikeouts. His career ERA was 4.95. He was inducted into the

Utah Sports Hall of Fame The Utah Sports Hall of Fame is an athletics hall of fame in the U.S. state of Utah. The Utah Sports Hall of Fame Foundation, organized in 1967 as The Old Time Athletes Association, was founded "to celebrate and preserve Utah's storied sports heri ...

in 1977.

References

External links

* 1925 births 1995 deaths Baltimore Orioles (International League) players Baseball players from Utah Cincinnati Reds players Major League Baseball pitchers Sportspeople from Utah County, Utah Philadelphia Phillies players St. Paul Saints (AA) players San Diego Padres (minor league) players Syracuse Chiefs players Tulsa Oilers (baseball) players United States Army personnel of World War II {{US-baseball-pitcher-1920s-stub