After a tryout with the
St. Louis Cardinals, Branch Rickey told him that his bat
would keep him out of the major league. But Carroll
Peterson's lumber was good enough to bat over .300 in all
but three of his eight seasons in the Kitty League and earn
him a place in its Hall of Fame.
"Pete" Peterson
batted .306 in 676 Kitty League games and was a consistent
run producer for the Fulton Tigers/Chicks/Railroaders
between 1940 and 1951. For players between 1935-1955, he
ranks 2nd in career games, at-bats (2,634), runs scored
(446), and hits (805). His best season was 1941 when he hit
.311 with a career high 14 home runs and 116 runs batted in
for Fulton. He was rewarded with a brief stint with the
Winston-Salem club of the Class B Piedmont League (a Detroit
Tigers farm club) the following season.
He served as
player-manager of the Mayfield Clothiers for the latter half
of the 1948 season. Later he managed the Paducah Chiefs when
the club was part of the Class D Mississippi-Ohio Valley
League in 1949.
Peterson was posthumously
elected to the Kitty League Hall of Fame at the Centennial
Reunion held in Paducah, KY on September 16, 2003.
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