Elmer Riddle
American baseball player

Elmer Ray Riddle (July 31, 1914 – May 14, 1984) was an American professional baseball player. A right-handed pitcher, he appeared in all or parts of ten Major League Baseball (MLB) seasons (1939–45; 1947–49) for the Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates. As a member of the 1941 Reds, he led the National League (NL) in winning percentage (19–4, .826) and earned run average (ERA) (2.24). Two years later, he tied for the NL and MLB lead in games won, with 21.
The 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m), 170 lb (77 kg) Riddle was born in Columbus, Georgia, the younger brother (by almost nine years) of Johnny Riddle, who had a brief career as a catcher and a longer tenure as a coach in the big leagues. Elmer Riddle's career started in 1936 and after four seasons in minor league baseball and a one-game 1939 trial with Cincinnati, he made the Reds' roster in 1940. He appeared in 15 games, all but one in relief, as the Reds won their second consecutive National League pennant. Riddle worked one inning of relief during the 1940 World Series against the Detroit Tigers, pitching a scoreless ninth in Game 1 and notching two strikeouts. The Reds lost that game, but took the series in seven games.
Riddle began 1941 in the Reds' bullpen, but on June 15 he was given a starting assignment against the New York Giants, and hurled a complete game victory.
“Elmer Riddle” enters the record as american baseball player. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Elmer, Riddle and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5366654. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1914, 1984, 1939 and 1947.
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This entry incorporates text from “Elmer Riddle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.