| Jake Pitler | |
| Position: | Second baseman |
| Birth Date: | 22 April 1894 |
| Birth Place: | New York City, U.S. |
| 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
As coach
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| Highlights: |
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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,[1] [2] he moved with his family to Western Pennsylvania when he was a boy, and he grew up in Beaver Falls and Pittsburgh.[3]
Pitler stood 5feet tall, weighed and batted and threw right-handed. He began his professional playing career in at Jackson of the Class C Southern Michigan Association. When that league disbanded in, 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 during the World War I manpower crisis. He played in 109 games for Pittsburgh that season, and two contests in, 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.[3]
During much of the 1920s, Pitler played in semi-professional or "outlaw" leagues. But in, 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 with Scranton.
In, 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 and remained a member of it through the end of the team's stay in Brooklyn in — through six National League championships and Brooklyn's lone world title, which came in .
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.[4]
Pitler retired as a coach after the 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 at the age of 73.[5] In 1991, he was inducted into the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in Pittsburgh.