Charlie Petty

Charles Edward Petty

• Bats Unknown, Throws Right
• Weight 175 lb.

• Debut July 30, 1889
• Final Game August 17, 1894
• Born June 28, 1866 in Nashville, TN USA
• Died December 7, 1928 in Detroit, MI USA

BR page

Biographical Information

Charlie Petty pitched three seasons in the majors and was in the minors at least from 1888 to 1897. He won 20+ games at least twice in the minors and in 1889 went 18-3.

Petty was born in Nashville, TN in 1866, and was the first major leaguer from Nashville to come to the majors. He was the fourth player from Tennessee. He was up in 1889 for 5 games and then came back in 1893 and 1894 for 29 more appearances. With the New York Giants in 1893 he was five years older than fellow pitcher Amos Rusie.

In the minors Charlie pitched a lot in the South but also in other parts of the country: at various times he was with teams such as Toledo, Seattle, Minneapolis and Norfolk.

His place and date of death were long unknown. As of the 1920 census he was living in Cairo, IL with his wife, Hattie Hammons, whom he had married in Nashville in 1891, and two daughters. In various censuses, he is listed as working in a handle factory in addition to being a ballplayer. His wife died in Cairo in 1921, and her obituary listed one of the couple's daughters, Cecile, as Mrs. Maston Shelby. That relatively unusual name served as a clue for researchers, who were able to trace Cecile and her husband to California, where the husband died in 1959 and the ballplayer's daughter in 1968. However there was no sign that Charlie Petty had ever moved there and there was no further clue, until Cecile and Maston Shelby's record of marriage was found in the Michigan marriages index for 1920. Petty and his other daughter, Bessie, show up in the Detroit, MI city directory in 1923, and in subsequent editions until 1927. With this information, Peter Morris was able to find a death certificate for the pitcher giving his death details.

Further Reading

• "Charles Petty Found", in Bill Carle, ed.: Biographical Research Committee Report, SABR , March/April 2013, p. 1.