Book Excerpt: The Original Louisville Slugger (2)

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The Original Louisville Slugger: The Life and Times of Forgotten Baseball Legend Pete Browning 

By: Tim Newby 

The Original Louisville Slugger: The Life and Times of

Forgotten Baseball Legend Pete Browning

By: Tim Newby

Pete spent the off-season as he usually did: meticulously preparing his large collection of bats for the upcoming season. This was not Pete’s only obsessive quirk; he also spent an inordinate amount of time caring for his eyes, or as he called them, “lamps.” He relied on a never-ending stream of odd home remedies to alleviate the pain and swelling around his eyes caused by mastoiditis. In an era of questionable medical practices, and given Pete’s limited education, it is not surprising that he turned to a host of peculiar treatments to care for his all-important lamps. “You can’t line one out unless you have got good peepers, Old Pete knows that and he takes good care of ’em,” he explained. “He never washes ’em with soap and water. It won’t do. It will ruin the best lamps in the world. Pete closes ’em up when he is washing, then waits until about 10 o’clock when he goes out in the streets and looks right up in the sun two or three times. That opens ’em good, and then he can line ’em out.”i 

Buttermilk was an integral part of his eye-care routine, and he had some delivered every morning during the season. He drank two glasses at bedtime, asserting, “It [is] a great nerve steadier.”ii He also bathed his eyes in buttermilk first thing every morning, insisting it was necessary “to make [me] see properly.”iii Although bathing his eyes in buttermilk probably provided some immediate, soothing relief, this practice actually put Pete at risk for a bacterial infection. His consumption of buttermilk was probably most beneficial for his eyes, as buttermilk contains lutein which is known as the “eye vitamin.” It is a strong antioxidant and helps protect and improve eye function, and is anti-inflammatory. 

On rainy days, Pete stood with his head turned skyward to let the rain rinse his eyes out. In pursuit of the perfect eye care, he was also known to drink two tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce at dinnertime, gulp down Tabasco sauce mixed with mustard and ginger, and hang his head out the train window as it chugged along, hoping to catch ashes or cinders in his eyes. “Clinkers are good for the peepers,” explained Pete. “Let a big one blow in your lamptenies and it will clean ’em out so you can drive a phony pitcher to drink.”iv 

Pete was adamant that smoking cigarettes improved his eyesight. “There is nothing like the smoke of a cigarette to put the eyes in trim to solve a twisting, sizzling curve.” To illustrate the power of cigarette smoke, Pete told the story of hard-hitting “Long” John Reilly. One day, Pete was in the dressing room, taking a few puffs on a cigarette before heading out to bat. Reilly was “pained” to see his friend partaking in the “pernicious habit” and asked Pete why he was smoking that “vile thing.” Pete explained it helped with his hitting, and then promptly cracked a three-bagger. Upon seeing Pete’s success at the plate, Reilly tried “to borrow, beg, or buy a cigarette.” He found one, took a couple of good puffs, and stroked a line shot of his own. Reilly was soon smoking regularly, but he saw no improvement in his hitting. He tried all brands of cigarettes before finally giving up the habit. Pete, of course, knew the reason for Reilly’s struggles. “It was because he didn’t have the confidence in the smoke,” he said.v 

The fact that a player of Reilly’s stature was willing to try Pete’s unconventional approach showed Pete’s influence on other players and what they thought of him. Despite never being named team captain or taking on any kind of official leadership role, Pete’s influence loomed large. Players emulated his quirks in the hopes of being able to hit like him. At meals, Pete would tell the rookies and youngsters on the team to order the most “absurd and hideous compound . . . [like] pancakes with onion dressing and sugar on top and tripe with maple syrup,” claiming it would help their batting. There is no evidence that Pete actually indulged in these insane concoctions himself, but given his success, it was hard for the rookies to ignore him. “The juveniles would accept whatever Pete said,” explained former player Bill Everitt, “and would order the same stuff until Pete’s ingenuity was exhausted of devising new cruelties for them.”vi 

Pete was not above adopting the strange habits of other successful players in the hopes of improving his game. For example, he always touched third base with his left foot as he came on or off the field, even if it meant going out of his way and crossing the diamond to do so. When asked about it, Pete explained that on one occasion, as he was leaving the field, he happened to touch third base and stung a triple in his next at-bat. The next inning, Pete did not touch third and failed to get a hit. That settled it for Pete. From then on, he made sure to touch the bag. He later offered conflicting stories as to the origin of this long-standing habit, claiming he picked it up from Hall of Famer Sam Thompson after observing him do the same. One day, Pittsburgh’s George “Doggie” Miller decided to have a little fun with Pete and actually carried third base off the field at the end of the inning. Pete ran around in a frenzy looking for the bag. When he spied Miller with it, he chased him around the park until Miller finally relented and replaced the base. Pete was also known to avoid walking through puddles, so his trek off the field at the end of each inning could turn into a zigzagging odyssey to dodge the puddles that often formed on the poorly manicured fields as he headed toward third to touch the bag before making his way to the bench. 

For Pete, every day was full of routines, habits, and superstitions that had to be followed. Socks had to be picked up in the right order, sand had to be rubbed on his bats in the morning before a game, certain foods had to be eaten, and he always had to have a chew of fine-cut tobacco. Failure to adhere to these routines, Pete believed, meant that he would not get any hits that day. Of course, Pete’s routines and superstitions were apt to change based on how he performed on any particular day. Once he forgot his shoes and borrowed a pair from Chicken Wolf. He stung four hits while wearing the borrowed shoes, and of course he believed that Wolf’s shoes were the key to his success.vii 

Pete liked his sleep and hated to be disturbed, regardless of the situation. In 1892, while Pete was playing with Cincinnati, the team was returning home from St. Louis when its train was hit by a freight train. Two sleeper cars were knocked off the tracks and slid down a steep incline. Longtime baseball manager and executive Frank Bancroft, who was Cincinnati’s business manager at the time, recalled the scene: “Somehow, some way we scrambled out in pajamas or without them, and took census of our numbers,” he said. “Bid McPhee had a smashed nose, Frank Dwyer had a skinned elbow, and there were a few minor injuries, but nobody was killed or crippled. And then to our utter horror, we found Charley Comiskey and Pete Browning were missing.” The two men were eventually located—still asleep in one of the cars. As the other players rejoiced in finding their teammates alive and well amongst the wreckage, Pete had only one thing on his mind. “Wotinell do you mean, anyhow,” Pete bellowed, as he took a swing at the man nearest him. “How often have I told you guys I had to have me sleep or there’d be trouble?”viii 

Despite Pete’s numerous quirks and superstitions and his belief that they powered his hitting, pitcher Gus Weyhing credited his success to something much simpler. Weyhing, who had known Pete for years, said, “I always attributed Pete’s natural hitting abilities to his mania for batting continually during practice.” He went on to explain: “Every morning in our practice on the home grounds Pete would be found at the home plate, bat in hand, tossing and hitting the ball. He never cared about ramming puny grounders to the infielders but pushed all his muscle against the ball and sent it to the deep outfield. On the trip Pete would sneak off to the grounds of the visiting clubs early of mornings and practice with the players of the opposing teams.”ix All his oddities, quirks, superstitions, and endless practice came together for Pete in 1885.  

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[1] “Baseball Gossip,” Brooklyn Citizen, July 19, 1891, 3.

[1]  “Baseball,” Louisville Courier-Journal, November 8, 1891, 17.

[1]  “Is Insane,” Louisville Courier-Journal, June 8, 1905, 2.

[1]  “Baseball Gossip,” Cincinnati Enquirer, April 12, 1896, 2.

[1]  “Baseball,” Louisville Courier-Journal, November 8, 1891, 17.

[1]  “Breaking in the Colts,” Washington Post, August 14, 1896, 8.

[1]  “Pete Browning and His Lamps,” Buffalo Enquirer, July 29, 1897, 8.

[1] W. A. Phelon, “Little Tales about Baseball: Two Noble Sleepers,” Buffalo News, June 10, 1911, 8.

[1] “Ehret Shows up in Good Form,” Louisville Courier-Journal, April 13, 1898, 6.