Pearce Chiles
From BR Bullpen
Pearce Nuget Chiles (What's The Use)
- Bats Right, Throws Right
- Height 5' 11", Weight 185 lb.
- Debut April 18, 1899
- Final Game October 13, 1900
- Born May 28, 1867 in Deepwater, MO USA
[edit] Biographical Information
"He was the oddest of all diamond odd-balls." - George Girsch, writing in 1958 in Baseball Digest about Pearce Chiles
Pearce Chiles was an infielder, outfielder, pinch-hitter and coach in between the many crimes he seems to have committed. He hit well for the 1899 Phillies. After 1903 he disappeared from sight, although since he was wanted for escaping from prison it was possibly intentional on his part.
As a coach (a duty he fulfilled on occasions when he wasn't playing), Chiles was once caught wearing an electric buzzer which relayed information about the opposing team's catcher's signals from one of Chiles' teammates who was using binoculars to read the signals. Chiles would then yell out a pre-arranged word to alert his teammate at the bat.
This site has a biography of Chiles, whose playing career was quite long, and lasted even after he escaped from prison. He also served as player-manager for Lancaster. He was often in trouble for breaking the law in various ways, something which didn't seem to greatly affect most of his playing career since he moved around a lot from team to team.
Baseball Digest of August 1958 has an article about him.
He was sometimes confused with Cupid Childs and his name was occasionally spelled Childs.
