Harding William "Pete" Peterson (October 17, 1929 – April 16, 2019) was an American professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

player and

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

. He played 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), ...

as a

catcher Catcher is a Baseball positions, position in baseball and softball. When a Batter (baseball), batter takes their at bat, turn to hit, the catcher crouches behind home plate, in front of the (home plate, home) Umpire (baseball), umpire, and recei ...

from 1955 to 1959. During his playing days, he was more commonly known as Hardy Peterson.

Biography

A graduate of

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

, where he was a full-season starter on the third-place

College World Series The College World Series (CWS), officially the NCAA Men's College World Series (MCWS), is an annual baseball tournament held in June in Omaha, Nebraska. The MCWS is the culmination of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Divisi ...

team in 1950 and second-team College All American that same year, Peterson spent the first three-plus decades of his career with the

Pittsburgh Pirates The Pittsburgh Pirates are an American professional baseball team based in Pittsburgh. The Pirates compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Founded as part of the American Associati ...

as a minor and MLB player,

minor league 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 Nor ...

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

farm system In sports, a farm team, farm system, feeder team, feeder club, or nursery club is generally a team or club whose role is to provide experience and training for young players, with an agreement that any successful players can move on to a higher ...

director and

Playing career

A right-handed batter and thrower, he appeared in 65 major league games over four seasons (1955; 1957–59) and batted .273 with three

home runs In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run i ...

in limited service, due to a two-year stint in

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

with the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

. Peterson and is also noted for appearing in the historic last games played at both the

Polo Grounds The Polo Grounds was the name of three stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used mainly for professional baseball and American football from 1880 through 1963. The original Polo Grounds, opened in 1876 and demolished in 1889, was built fo ...

and

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 p ...

in September of . He was 2-for-5 with two

runs batted in A run batted in (RBI; plural RBIs ) is a statistic in baseball and softball that credits a batter for making a play that allows a run to be scored (except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play). For example, if the bat ...

against the

Giants A giant is a being of human appearance, sometimes of prodigious size and strength, common in folklore. Giant(s) or The Giant(s) may also refer to: Mythology and religion *Giants (Greek mythology) *Jötunn, a Germanic term often translated as 'gi ...

at the Polo Grounds, twice driving home

Roberto Clemente Roberto Enrique Clemente Walker (; August 18, 1934 – December 31, 1972) was a Puerto Rican professional baseball right fielder who played 18 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Pittsburgh Pirates. After his early death, he was pos ...

. His playing career was effectively ended as the result of a broken arm suffered in a home plate collision at

Wrigley Field Wrigley Field is a Major League Baseball (MLB) stadium on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is the home of the Chicago Cubs, one of the city's two MLB franchises. It first opened in 1914 as Weeghman Park for Charles Weeghman's Chicago Wh ...

in early .

Managing and executive career

Later in

1959 Events January * January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...

he began his

managing Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

career at the Class B level and reached Class AAA in 1967 as skipper of the Pirates' top farm club, the

Columbus Jets The Columbus Jets were a Minor League baseball team that played in Columbus, Ohio, from 1955 to 1970. The team moved from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada where they were known as the Ottawa Athletics. The Jets were a member of the Triple-A (baseball), Tr ...

of the

International League The International League (IL) is a Minor League Baseball league that operates in the United States. Along with the Pacific Coast League, it is one of two leagues playing at the Triple-A level, which is one grade below Major League Baseball ...

. From 1968 through 1976, he directed Pittsburgh's highly productive farm system and, when longtime general manager

Joe L. Brown Joe LeRoy Brown (September 1, 1918 – August 15, 2010) was an American front office executive in Major League Baseball. Brown served as the general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates from November 1, 1955, through the end of the 1976 season. Und ...

retired following the

1976 Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 Phila ...

campaign, Peterson succeeded him, splitting duties with longtime executive Joe O'Toole, who handled business matters. One of his first (and most noted) moves was the 1976 trade of catcher

Manny Sanguillén Manuel De Jesus Sanguillén Magan, better known as Manny Sanguillén or "Sangy" (born March 21, 1944), is a Panamanian former professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a catcher in and from through , most notably as a ...

and cash to the Oakland A's for manager

Chuck Tanner Charles William Tanner (July 4, 1928February 11, 2011) was an American professional baseball player and manager. A left fielder and pinch hitter who appeared in 396 games in Major League Baseball between 1955 and 1962, he was known for his unwav ...

. On Peterson's watch, the Pirates remained consistent contenders and in 1979 won 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 s ...

pennant and defeated the favored

Baltimore Orioles The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East division. As one of the American L ...

in a seven-game

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 ...

. That Bucs' team, led by

Hall of Fame A hall, wall, or walk of fame is a list of individuals, achievements, or other entities, usually chosen by a group of electors, to mark their excellence or Wiktionary:fame, fame in their field. In some cases, these halls of fame consist of actu ...

slugger

Willie Stargell Wilver Dornell Stargell (March 6, 1940 – April 9, 2001), nicknamed "Pops" later in his career, was an American professional baseball left fielder and first baseman who spent all of his 21 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) ( 1962– 1982 ...

, was augmented by two bold in-season trades made by Peterson. Frustrated with

Frank Taveras Franklin Crisostomo Taveras Fabian (born December 24, 1949), is a former Major League shortstop from to for the Pittsburgh Pirates, New York Mets and Montreal Expos. Career Pittsburgh Pirates Taveras signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates as an a ...

' defensive inconsistency, Peterson dealt the erratic shortstop to the Mets for

Tim Foli Timothy John Foli (born December 6, 1950), is an American former professional baseball player, coach and minor league manager. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a shortstop for the New York Mets, Montreal Expos, San Francisco Giants, Pi ...

. Later in the season, he put together a package of three pitchers and acquired two-time National League batting champion

Bill Madlock Bill "Mad Dog" Madlock, Jr. (born January 12, 1951) is an American former professional baseball player and coach. He played in Major League Baseball as a third baseman from 1973 to 1987. Madlock is notable for being a four-time National League b ...

from the San Francisco Giants. The Pirates faded from contention in the early 1980s and by

1985 The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a ...

the team—rocked by a drug scandal among its players—was put up for sale. After a series of missteps which included the acquisitions of veterans

Amos Otis Amos Joseph Otis (born April 26, 1947) is an American former professional baseball player and coach. He played in Major League Baseball as a center fielder from to , most prominently as an integral member of the Kansas City Royals team that won t ...

Gene Tenace Fury Gene Tenace (; born Fiore Gino Tenacci; October 10, 1946), better known as Gene Tenace, is an American former professional baseball player and coach. He played as a catcher and first baseman in Major League Baseball from through , most n ...

and

George Hendrick George Andrew Hendrick Jr. (born October 18, 1949) is an American former professional baseball player and coach. He played in Major League Baseball as an outfielder between and , most prominently as an integral member of the St. Louis Cardinals t ...

, Peterson was fired on May 23, 1985 and replaced by his predecessor Brown. He eventually joined the

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Amer ...

, where he worked in their front office and served one season (

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

) as the club's general manager. His firing was the last official act of

George Steinbrenner George Michael Steinbrenner III (July 4, 1930July 13, 2010) was an American businessman who was the principal owner and managing partner of Major League Baseball's New York Yankees from 1973 until his death in 2010. He was the longest-serving own ...

before Steinbrenner's suspension from baseball as a result of the "

Dave Winfield David Mark Winfield (born October 3, 1951) is an American former Major League Baseball (MLB) right fielder. He is the special assistant to the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association. Over his 22-year career, he playe ...

scandal." Peterson spent the remainder of his career as a consultant/major league scout for both the

San Diego Padres The San Diego Padres are an American professional baseball team based in San Diego. The Padres compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1969, the club has won two NL penna ...

and

Toronto Blue Jays The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Since 1989, the team has played its home games ...

organizations, and fully retired from baseball in 1995. He was inducted in the Kinston Professional Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984, as well as the Rutgers University Athletic Hall of Fame in 1997. He was the father of

Milwaukee Brewers The Milwaukee Brewers are an American professional baseball team based in Milwaukee. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) National League Central, Central division. The Brewers are named for t ...

pitching coach Rick Peterson.

Death

Peterson died on April 16, 2019.Harding Peterson obituary
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References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Peterson, Harding 1929 births 2019 deaths Asheville Tourists managers Baseball players from New Jersey Columbus Jets players Major League Baseball catchers Major League Baseball farm directors Major League Baseball general managers New Orleans Pelicans (baseball) players New York Yankees executives Pittsburgh Pirates executives Pittsburgh Pirates players Rutgers Scarlet Knights baseball players Rutgers University alumni Salt Lake City Bees players San Diego Padres scouts Sportspeople from Perth Amboy, New Jersey Tallahassee Pirates players Toronto Blue Jays scouts Waco Pirates players Williamsport Grays players Wilson Tobs players United States Army personnel of the Korean War American expatriate baseball people in the Dominican Republic