Les Tietje

Who was Les Tietje?

Leslie William "Toots" Tietje was a right-handed Major League Baseball starting pitcher who played from 1933 to 1938 for the Chicago White Sox and St. Louis Browns. He was 6 ft 0 in tall and he weighed 178 pounds.

He broke into professional baseball in 1931, pitching for the Waterloo Hawks and going 8–13 with a 5.03 ERA. He spent 1932 with Waterloo, going 8–14, and hitting .212 with four home runs. In 1933, he spent most of the season with the Dallas Steers, going 14–10 with a 3.51 ERA. He earned a call up to the big leagues, and on September 18 he made his debut. He started three games for the White Sox that year, going 2–0 with a 2.42 ERA. As he would throughout his entire career, he walked more batters than he struck out: in 22⅓ innings, he walked 15 batters and struck out only nine.

According to John Carmichael, Tietje was on pace for a successful career, but he developed arthritis in his arm and would be hampered by that for the rest of his career. In 1934, for example, he was only 5–14 with a 4.81 ERA. In 176 innings, he walked 96 batters and struck out only 81.