Pelot and Parkhurst Teamed to Develop Detroit Righthander’s Hurling Control

Hal Pelot, righthand hurler of the Jamestown Falcons, credits a former Falcon- Lefty Lyle Parkhurst - with aiding him to shake off the time-worm bugaboo of all pitchers, lack of control.

“Why,” quiet Hal told us the other day, “when I came to the Falcons last year from Detroit I was so wild at times that Big Art Dobberstein, Virl Minnis and the rest of the Falcon catchers used to wonder when I’d have one over the grandstand.”

Somewhere along the baseball trails Lefty Lyle had picked up one of those corrective little stunts that work wonders and he used it on Detroit Hal. It consists of standing about 10 feet apart and tossing a ball back and forth, the pitcher trying to hit the other player’s glove consistently while throwing fairly hard. As his accuracy develops he backs up, step at a time, day by day, throwing harder as the distance increases.

“Lefty and I worked by the hour,” Hal explained, his easy grin breaking out. Finally one day I was throwing the regulation 60 feet, 6 inches, bearing down with every pitch and hitting Lefty’s mitt five out of six times.”

Pelot is a product of the Detroit sandlots. He is 18 years old, born in Detroit on Sept. 27, 1927; stands 5 feet, 10 ½ inches and bats and throws righthanded. His first start was as a pitcher with the Firemen of Detroit Sandlot League, where one of his three greatest thrills from baseball was hitting a home run with two men on to win his own game, 3-2.

Those other two top thrills included pitching a no-hit, no-run game in Detroit, striking out 18 of 21 men during the performance and fanning 10 Lockport Cubs in four and one-third innings of relief for his tutor, Parkhurst, during the 1945 Governor’s Cup playoffs last year.

Manager Jim Levy, it will be remembered was forced in come back with Parky after one day of rest because the rampaging Bruins had the Falcons with the backs against the barrier. They chased the talkative one and went on to win, advancing against Batavia in the series finals, but Jamestown had one bright spot—the strike-out hurling of the slender Detroit righthander.

Pelot was a member of the Gems of the Sandlot League they year they were named to play in Briggs Stadium as part of the annual Billy Rogell All-Star series.

Hal started in the 1946 season with a rush, winning his first five games from May 1 through June 2 after downing the Hamilton Cards at the Stadium in the 1946 inaugural.

A lame arm loomed to plague him, however, and Manager Marvin Olson used the youngster sparingly until July 18, when he started him against Bradford. He stopped the Wings cold for his sixth win, 10-1. To date he has appeared in 13 games, both as a starter and reliever, gone the distance six times and won six and lost four.

When reminded another guy named Hal (Hal Newhouser), who was born and reared in Detroit, is making quite a name for himself, The Falcons Hal simply smiled and kept his thoughts to himself.