This is George Pfister

Bloggers are an obnoxious lot. We tell the world about all the humdrum events in our lives with the smug self-righteousness of a Hollywood gossip columnist. We casually write about Penny Singleton, Leon Askin, and Meat Loaf as if we know everything there is to know about them.

Last Christmas my mother gave me an autographed baseball signed by the 1952 Brooklyn Dodgers. Of course I blogged about it. It was a cool present she found while cleaning out my father's dresser. One of the signatures on the ball was that of George Pfister. I made light of the fact that his name wasn't even on the 1952 Dodger team roster. After a little digging on the web, I discovered that George Pfister played in exactly one major league game in 1941. What business did he have signing my ball?

After a call to the Dodger organization, I came to find out that George Pfister was the bullpen coach for the 1952 Brooklyn Dodgers. Not a particularly glamorous job today and probably not a glamorous job back then. But there was his name on my ball, plain as day, along with the signatures of such baseball luminaries as Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, Roy Campanella, Duke Snider, and Pee Wee Reese. "Guess he just happened to be around when the ball was being signed," speculated Mark Langell, the Dodger team historian.

Turns out there is more to George Pfister's baseball career than I ever would have thought. And for one Tyler, Texas man, George Pfister made a life-long impression.

Tom Connally is a dentist in Tyler, Texas. We recently shared some blog comments and a little email. Evidently Mr. Connally was surfing the web not long ago when he stumbled across my blog post on George Pfister. Mr. Connally knew George. He met George for the first time back in 1942. He met him again in 1946 when George was a catcher for the Fort Worth Cats, the Dodger AA Texas League farm team. After that they lost touch, until Mr. Connally decided to look him up again in 1994.

George Pfister had a life-long career in baseball, his 1-game stint as a player in the majors notwithstanding. Here is what Mr. Connally told me about George Pfister's baseball career:

Aug-Sept '41 - Brooklyn Dodgers, Catcher
'42 - '45 - Army Air Corps/Army Air Force
'46 - Ft. Worth Cats, Catcher. He broke a leg that summer, and, for all practical purposes, that finished his playing career.
'47 - Managed Pulaskie, a Dodger farm club in the class D Allegheny League
'48 - '51 - Managed or coached teams in the Dodger farm system up to AAA. He was moved back up to the major leagues in the summer of '51 or '52. My understanding of his designation as "player/coach" was purely a roster move for the '52 series "in case Roy went down."
For the remainder of his career, he was in the front office for the Dodgers, Yankees, and, finally, the commissioner's office.

I don't know why George Pfister was such a positive influence in Mr. Connally's life. They met at Fort Logan, Colorado. At the time, the Army Air Corps used Fort Logan for training clerks, and later activated the medical facilities there as a convalescent hospital. A portion of the grounds also served as a War Department Processing Center, for induction into and separation from military service. Perhaps George was training to be a clerk. Perhaps George worked in the convalescent hospital. Or perhaps George was a 24-year-old Brooklyn Dodger who knew a little something of the world and could reassure scared boys before they were shipped overseas. But whatever it was, George Pfister had an important role in Mr. Connally's life there in Fort Logan, and the friendship and gratitude were never forgotten.

George Pfister passed away in 1997 when he was 79. He devoted his life to baseball, he didn't cuss, he was a devout Catholic, and he was a "super influence on one little kid". The numbers in George Pfister's major league record don't add up to much. The numbers in George Pfister's personal record add up to much, much more.

Thanks, George, for signing my ball.
K-