To Top

1950 Photo of Jeepster & Marino Pieretti on eBay

• CATEGORIES: Features, Old Images, Old News Articles This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

To speed up relief pitchers, a bright red Jeepster was employed to run pitchers from the bullpen to the infield. This picture appeared in at least one newspaper, the Times Dispatch out of Richmond Virginia, May 20, 1950 (but the scan of it is terrible, so no need to share it here).

View all the information on eBay

“1950 Press Photo Marino Pieretti climbs out of jeep for game in Cleveland. This is an original press photo. Cleveland. To hurry up ball games, the Cleveland Indians inaugurated jeep service last night for relief pitchers. Here’s Marino Pieretti climbing out of jeep after that long ride from the bull pen to the infield. He relieved Bob Feller on the mound at the start of the seventh inning against the Philadelphia Athletics and was the first to use the service. Baseball. Mario Pieretti. Photo measures 10 x 8.25inches. Photo is dated 05-18-1950.”

1950-05-18-jeepster-marino-pieretti-baseball2

1950-05-18-jeepster-marino-pieretti-baseball1

1950-05-18-jeepster-marino-pieretti-baseball3

The use of jeeps did NOT help the Indians defeat the A’s during their first game, as Cleveland dropped the game 7-5:

1950-05-17-the-tribune-scranton-jeep-baseball

May 18, 1950, The Tribune out of Scranton, PA

Not everyone was impressed with the new idea. A few days after the above photo was taken, one writer thought the jeep (or any vehicle) wasn’t going to speed up the game all that much.

1950-05-23-jeeps-baseball

May 23, 1950, Arizona Republic.

 

2 Comments on “1950 Photo of Jeepster & Marino Pieretti on eBay

  1. David Eilers Post author

    Bingo,

    That’s cool that he played ball with him, but not cool that Marino avoided paying the $10 by passing away, lol.

    Did your dad play major league ball?

    – Dave

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe without commenting