Gerald Peterson

Gerald Olaf Peterson
(Peanuts, The Pride of Proctor)

• Bats Left, Throws Right
• Height 5' 9", Weight 196 lb.
• High School Proctor (MN) High School

• Born December 12, 1925 in Solway Township, MN USA
• Died July 24, 1948 in Roseville, MN USA

BR Minors page

Biographical Information

Gerald "Peanuts" Peterson - his brothers' nicknames were "Popcorn" and "Crackerjack" - excelled in football, basketball, and track and field for Proctor High School, and his 1943 Rails basketball team earned Region 7 Runner-Up status. He left school before his senior year to serve in the merchant marine during World War II. He was playing amateur baseball for Esko, MN in 1946 when he caught the attention of Duluth Dukes' owner Frank Wade, the father of Rip Wade and namesake of Wade Stadium.

Peterson finished the 1946 season by batting .299 in 31 games for the Dukes. He was voted the Dukes' "most popular player" in fan balloting in 1947, when he batted .292 with 118 hits, 12 doubles, seven triples, one home run, 47 RBI, and 27 stolen bases in 110 games.

He was having his best season yet for Duluth in 1948, with a .322 average and 10 triples in 72 games, when tragedy struck on July 24th. The team bus burst into flames after a head-on collision with a chemical truck in Roseville, Minnesota, as the team was traveling from Eau Claire, WI to St. Cloud, MN. Peterson perished at the scene along with team manager George "Red" Treadwell, players Don Schuchmann and Gilbert Trible, and the truck driver, James Grealish. Another player, Steve Lazar, died at a St. Paul hospital two days later. Only four of the 13 surviving players played professional baseball again. Peterson was 22 years old.

On July 29, 1948, the Proctor Journal published a letter to the editor titled "Play Ball!," signed by "A Proctor Baseball Fan":

Our Pride of Proctor is gone but his memory will go down in the annals of Proctor as the boy and man loved, honored and idolized by young and old alike. The ideal of the young whose hopes were that they would one day be like Peanuts, and the old wishing that they too could have been like Peanuts. Could the decision of to play or not to play the rest of the season be left to Peanuts Peterson, he would be the first to call out "Play Ball!" Now that Peanuts, our Peanuts, has been transferred to the Big League to play on the Greatest Diamond of all, we who cheered, admired and loved him know that when the Greatest Manager calls out "Play Ball," that Peanuts Peterson, Our Pride of Proctor, will be right there to bat.

He is buried at Oneota Cemetery in Duluth, MN. His gravestone reads, "Gerald (Peanuts) Peterson 1925 1948 C.F. Duluth Dukes Killed in Bus Crash with Five Teammates on Scheduled Tour July 24, 1948"

Related Sites

• The Sporting News Baseball Player Contract Card page
• Proctor Baseball Hall of Fame page
• Find A Grave page