"It wasn't until last August that Fritz Peterson finally figured why, with all of his obvious pitching skills, he wasn't winning. He worried too much, he decided. When he should have been concentrating on the hitter facing him, he was usually brooding over what had happened in the last inning, or the last game, or even the last season. But once he turned his attention back present matters, the likable southpaw pitched the best baseball of his big league career, while pitching his way back out of the bullpen. He turned in a 12-11 record with an ERA of 2.63 and fanned 114 batters while walking only 29.
He throws an assortment of stuff - fastball, curve, slider and changeup. With all that, why worry?"
-Jack Zanger, Major League Baseball 1969
"Fritz had a five-game losing streak going at the time. He was watching Mel Stottlemyre on the mound taking a terrific pounding from the Twins last August 11.
'When I saw a good pitcher like Mel take that and keep his cool,' says Fritz, 'I made up my mind that I had to be that way, too. I was always a worrier. But from that day on I quit worrying about my record, about next year or even the next batter. I thought only of the hitter I was facing. It worked out pretty good.'
'It' is maturity as a pitcher - which took Peterson from a shaky first half start to a fine 12-11 finish in the second half of the season, with Fritz winning six in a row alongside such cool operators as Bahnsen and Stottlemyre.
'Pretty good?'
Peterson's maturity has been helped by newly acquired tools - a slider and a change. With his fastball hopping and his curve breaking, the additional pitches give him the confidence he earlier lacked.
During the past winter, Fritz continued work on his doctorate in physical education at Northern Illinois University, taught phys ed courses (pocket billiards and bowling) and coached hockey at NIU. A former semi-pro hockey player in the Chicago suburbs, Fritz keeps in shape by skating during the winter. He is married and has a son Gregg (2)."
-The New York Yankees Official 1969 Yearbook
"This wily left-hander has developed into one of the better pitchers in the league. His ERA of 2.63 was the 15th lowest in the AL last year.
Fritz has a variety of pitches and can control them all. He walked only 29 men in 212 innings pitched while striking out 115, the ratio of walks to strikeouts being almost four to one; two to one is considered very good. He has averaged only 1.6 walks per nine innings in his three-year major league career.
His 8-14 mark of 1967 is mostly [attributed] to just 'tough luck' pitching. At one point Fritz hurled 34 2/3 innings without the benefit of a run, and eight of the fourteen losses were either by one run or when he was the victim of a shutout. He won six straight games this past year, which he lists as his outstanding baseball experience to date. Fritz hurled two shutouts in '68, one being a 2-hitter, the low-hit game by a Yankee pitcher all year.
A graduate of Northern Illinois University, where he also received a Master's degree in education, Fritz taught and coached hockey there during the off-season. He always was a hockey enthusiast and once played in a semi-pro league."
-1969 New York Yankees Press-TV-Radio Guide
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