Negro League Hall of Famer Pete Hill

Hall of Famer Pete Hill excelled as an outfielder in the Negro Leagues for an incredible span of 27 years: from 1899 to 1926.

A left-handed batter, Hill was a great hitter, both for average and power. An amazingly consistent line-drive hitter who used the entire field and excelled at bunting for base hits, he was a superior contact hitter with a near perfect eye for the strike zone and seldom struck out. In 1911 he was credited with hitting safely in 115 of 116 games. As the first great outfielder in black baseball history, he was compared to Ty Cobb, and rightfully so. If an all-star team had been picked from the deadball era, Cobb and Hill would have flanked Tris Speaker to form the outfield constellation.

Hill was a complete ballplayer and, although slightly bowlegged, could field and run the bases as well as hit. The star center fielder was one of the fastest outfielders in the game, fielded flawlessly, and had a deadly arm. On the bases he was a very fast, graceful runner and a good base stealer. But more than that, he was a nervy base runner who upset pitchers and infielders like Jackie Robinson was to do a quarter decade later. He was described as a "restless type, always in motion, jumping back and forth, trying to draw a throw from the pitcher."

In 1915, in a hotly contested game against the Indianapolis ABCs, with heavy betting on the outcome, he became engaged in an argument with the umpire, who pulled a gun and hit Hill in the nose. A riot ensued and the game was forfeited to the ABCs. The two teams were very evenly matched, but by the end of the season the American Giants won the playoff for the championship.

Incomplete records indicate a lifetime .326 batting average in black baseball, and he proved his hitting ability in Cuba as well, compiling a .307 average for six winter seasons.

A hitting master, Hill could hit both left-handers and right-handers equally well and was the backbone of the great Chicago American Giants' teams for almost twenty years.