Jake Pitler

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, he moved with his family to Western Pennsylvania when he was a boy, and he grew up in Beaver Falls and Pittsburgh.

Baseball career Pitler stood 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.

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. In 1991, he was inducted into the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in Pittsburgh.