Ping Bodie: S.F.'s Home Run Hero of the Dead-Ball Era

Ping Bodie

One of the most feared sluggers of the 1910s was Cow Hollow native Francesco "Frank" Stephano Pezzolo, better known in baseball as Ping Bodie.  Bodie played with the San Francisco Seals in 1910 hitting 30 home runs that season, the most home runs any player, majors or minors, had ever hit in a single season at that time. He called himself "Ping" for the sound that the ball made when he smashed his bat against it and he chose the last name, "Bodie" for the mining town where his father once worked. Local fans just called him "the World Champion of Home Runs."

1945 edition of
You Know Me Al
by Ring Lardner

In 1911, Bodie became the first Italian-American to play in the major leagues when the Chicago White Sox called him up. He was a bit limited as a ballplayer. Sportswriter Buggs Baer once noted after a failed attempt to steal base, "His heart was full of larceny but his feet were honest." What he lacked in base-running, however, he made up for with big hits... and a big ego. "I can crash that ol' apple" and "I'm Bodie, the guy that can whale that onion," are just a few of his typical boasts. While he played, his five year-old son continued the boasts for him, announcing to all the fans in the grandstand, "My dad is the best hitter in all the league." When someone asked, "How do you know?" the kid replied, "Dad told me so."

Sportswriter Ring Lardner most likely based his character Jack Keefe on Ping Bodie. The fiction series You Know Me Al originally ran in the Saturday Evening Post from 1914 to 1919. In 1922, Lardner turned it into a comic strip that ran on newspaper sports pages.

Comic strips from Ring Lardner's You Know Me Al: The Comic Strip Adventures of Jack Keefe.

After four years with the Sox, Bodie was sent back down to the San Francisco Seals. (Although, he claimed it was only because he wanted to attend the Panama-Pacific International Expo.) He was back in the big leagues again in 1917, playing for the Philadelphia Athletics. In 1919 he was traded to the New York Yankees and when Babe Ruth joined the team in 1920, Ping Bodie was his roommate - though Bodie claimed to have only been roommates with Ruth's suitcase.

PING BODIE QUITS BASEBALL -- OPENS SERVICE STATION
January 14, 1929 - Ping Bodie, the Italian fence buster of San Francisco and nationally known baseball player has opened a gasoline service station and coffee shop in San Francisco. It is rumored, however, that Ping will act as coach for St. Ignatius College during the coming baseball season.

Bodie left the majors in 1921. He continued to play minor league ball, opened a gas station in San Francisco near Recreation Park, and later got a job as an electrician in Hollywood. Lefty O'Doul personally delivered a Seals cap to him every season that Ping lived in Los Angeles,

July 4, 1936 - "Ping" Bodie, former American league baseball star and roommate of Babe Ruth of the New York Yankees, discusses motion picture lighting with Charles Boyer on the set of Selznick International's "The Garden of Allah". Boyer is starred with Marlene Dietrich in David O. Selznick's initial technicolor production.

The fans never forgot Ping Bodie either. Saturday, August 27, 1927 was  dubbed "Ping Bodie Day" at Recreation Park. The day was sponsored by San Francisco's Italian community who showered the former ball player with gifts. When the Giants moved to San Francisco, Bodie was given a lifetime pass to Candlestick Park that was signed by the presidents of the National and American Leagues "in appreciation of long and meritorious service."

Francesco Stephano Pezzolo, aka Ping Bodie was born October 8, 1887 and died December 17, 1961 in San Francisco. He is a member of the Italian American Sports Hall of Fame.

Further Reading:

Barbary Baseball: The Pacific Coast League of the 1920s by R. Scott Mackey

The Golden Game: The Story of California Baseball by Kevin Nelson

Ring Lardner's You Know Me Al: The Comic Strip Adventures of Jack Keefe

You Know Me Al: A Busher's Letters by Ring Lardner

"Bodie, Ping" in the San Francisco Examiner newspaper clippings morgue at the San Francisco History Center.

"Bodie, Ping" [P71] in the San Francisco News-Call Bulletin photo morgue at the San Francisco History Center.