From Fast Balls to Highballs — The Frank Pfeffer Story

 

Francis X. “Frank” Pfeffer, shown left,  was a Major League baseball player who could both hit and pitch — once twirling a “no hit” game for a team that became the Boston Braves.  After his temper as a minor league manager had him barred from organized baseball, Pfeffer turned to operating a Providence, Rhode Island, hotel, bar, and liquor store — a move that found him contending with a neighboring liquor dealer.

Pfeffer was born in March 1882 in Champaign, Illinois, the eighth of twelve children of farmer William and Mary Jochim Pfeffer, both born in Illinois of German Catholic ancestry.   Educated through high school while helping on the farm, Frank was a big youth — over six feet and weighing 185 pounds — and athletically gifted.  Enrolling at the University of Illinois,  he initially played varsity football, but when the university needed a pitcher he converted to baseball, winning fifteen games and losing only two while leading Illinois to the 1904 conference championship.

Dropped from the team for playing summer semi-pro ball, Pfeffer turned professional, accepting an offer from the Chicago Cubs.  Along the way, he picked up the nickname “Big Jeff,”  a moniker of murky origins, used by the press but not by Pfeffer.  After a so-so season in Chicago, the fireballing right-hander in late 1905 was traded to Boston, a frequent cellar-dwelling club called the “Beaneaters.”

Although the Beaneaters were traditionally bad, in 1906, Pfeffer showed well.  One local sportswriter commented:  “Pfeffer [was], by all odds, the steadiest and most serviceable of Boston’s pitchers.”   He also played 14 games in the outfield, posting a competent fielding average (.955) but hitting only .196, with one home run and 11 RBI’s for the season.  Frank started the 1907 season with a bang.  On May 8 using, one writer said, “a world of steam and puzzling curves,” he threw a 6-0 no hitter at the Cincinnati Reds.  The following month, however, he tore a tendon in his pitching arm.  After spending weeks recovering, his pitching prowess largely had vanished.

Boston optioned him to the Baltimore Orioles who recognized Frank’s hitting and fielding ability.  Playing everyday right field in 1908 the husky youth blossomed.  In 58 games he batted a team-leading .301 and was instrumental in the Orioles winning the Eastern League pennant.  Boston reclaimed him for the 1909 season.  Pfeffer’s career then began a downward spiral as in ensuing seasons he was released by Boston, sent back to Baltimore, then shuffled off to Toronto, and finally back to the Chicago Cubs, where he had begun his major league career.  In Chicago he had spotty relief appearances and the indignity of being designated to pitch the Cubs daily batting practice.

By 1911 he was back in Boston for a team that thankfully had shed “Beaneaters” for “Braves” but still languished last in the National League.  After a promising 4-0 start in spot duty on the mound, Boston tried option Pfeffer to New Orleans of the Class A Southern Association.  When that failed, his career in the major leagues was over.  He was not yet 30.

Subsequently Pfeffer continued to be associated with baseball as a pitcher, hitter and sometimes manager for a series of minor league teams in and around New England.  In April 1914, he was hired as the player-manager of the Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Tigers of the Class C Colonial League.  As reported in the Providence Daily Journal:  “Pfeffer opines he is not through with baseball itself and he will play somewhere on the team, likely first….” 

Known for his temper, Pfeffer’s days in organized baseball came to an end in 1914 when during a game in Pawtucket he engaged in an on-field fistfight with the vice president of the Colonial League and was summarily fired. He continued to make the baseball diamond a centerpiece in his life, playing in semipro, industrial and town leagues until well into middle age.

Frank’s return to the East Coast, however, had a bright spot.  He had met Martha Osborn, a Massachusetts native.  On December 29, 1909, they were married at St. Cecilia’s Church in Boston.  He was 27; she was 26.  The couple would have only one child, Herbert John, born in October 1912.  Faced with familial responsibilities, in 1913 Pfeffer moved to Providence, Rhode Island, to manage a hotel, bar and liquor store at 703-707 Westminster Street, a major commercial thoroughfare, shown above.

The hostelry was known as the West Side Hotel and Pfeffer called his liquor establishment the “West Side Family Wine Store.”  His proprietary brand was “West Side Club Whiskey.”  This was an allusion to a men’s club in the neighborhood that was a magnet for the manufacturers, large proprietors and professionals of Providence.  Frank himself was a member, honored for his athletic record.  He issued two highball glasses, each bearing his name and the club, that would have been given away to special customers.

Highly competitive by nature, Pfeffer cannot have been happy when a close neighbor at 769 Westminster Street began to copy his merchandising techniques.   Hard knuckles competition was originating down the block at 769 Westminster from a saloon and liquor outlet known as “The Austin Family Wine Store”  It was owned by Eugene H. Austin, a Jewish immigrant from Austria.  Austin issued highball glasses similar to Pfeffer’s and gave them “club” names — “Paramount Club” and “Wellworth Club.”   The possibilities for customer confusion were patent.  As one observer has put it:  “It seems that Providence saw a trade war with two family liquor stores duking it out on Westminster St.!” 

Pfeffer also found that running a hotel and drinking establishment could have its problems.  Although licensed by Providence authorities as a “first-class tavern,” in August 1918 his premises were raided by local police and six women described as “night walkers” were arrested there. The same year Frank reported to police that someone had broken into the hotel overnight and stolen cash.

A final blow to Pfeffer’s career in the hospitality industry came with the advent of National Prohibition in 1920 when he was forced to end all sales of alcohol. In February of that year he advertised an auction sale of the contents of his hotel bar.  It included four cash registers, the bar and back bar, beer and liquor bottles and cases, two cigar cases, carbonating apparatus, ice chests, 500 bottles, seventeen tables and fifty chairs.  A year later Pfeffer found himself sued by the owner of the building, possibly for breaking his lease once the possibility of profits from alcohol sales had ended.  Whatever the cause, the judge found in Pfeffer’s favor.

Eventually Frank returned to Dorchester, Massachusetts, likely to be near his wife’s family.  During World War Two he served as a timekeeper at the Boston Naval Yard.  After his wife’s death in 1947, he moved back to Champaign to be close to his brothers and a sister.  He died there at the age of 72 in December 1854.  His funeral was held in Holy Cross Church in Champaign and he was buried there in St. Mary’s Cemetery.  The monument is shown here.

Frank Pfeffer will never be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He was just one of the thousands of journeyman players who have made their way for a few years in the major leagues and gone on to other occupations.  But his apparent lifelong dedication to the game make Pfeffer worthy of notice — as does his turn as a Rhode Island “whiskey man.”

Frank Pfeffer

Note:  This post would not have been possible without information from two major sources: 1) SABR-The Society for American Baseball Research, in an article entitled “Big Jeff Pfeffer.”  Written by Bill Lamb it is carefully researched and documents much of Pfeffer’s playing life.  The photo of Frank pitching also is from that article. 2) A research staff member of the Rhode Island Historical Society in Providence.  She found a considerable amount of information in its newspaper archives regarding Pfeffer's liquor business and was able to send me copies.  I am indebted to  her and to the Society for their help.