In 1934, the Blue Sox joined the Class A Western League and Piechota was 13-11 in 30 appearances. In 1935, his third year with the Blue Sox, he was 17-6 in 25 games, leading the league in strikeouts and hurling 209 innings. What’s more he batted .302 and hit five home runs. On July 31, he was sold to the New York Yankees and reported to the Newark Bears of the Class AA International League for spring training in 1936.
Piechota got his first outing against a big league team at Sarasota, Florida, on April 2, holding the Boston Red Sox hitless for five innings in the Bears’ 5-3 loss against the American Leaguers.
When the regular season started, Piechota was the talk of the Yankees farm system. “The newest Newark hero,” an Associated Press article announced on April 18, 1936, “is Al Piechota . . . Despite weather that was too cold for good baseball and held the attendance down to 100, Piechota put a sudden stop to the base hit barrage that has marked most of the early season games and gave the Bears a 13 to 9 triumph over the Toronto Maple Leafs yesterday. Taking the slab after Spurgeon Chandler and Red LaFlamme had been battered into submission in less than five innings, Piechota limited the Leafs to four hits in 4 2-3 innings, whiffed four and contributed a lusty triple to his own victory.”
A week later - April 23 - he was back in the news, pitching the Bears to a 3-0 victory with a four-hitter against the Rochester Red Wings.
The 22-year-old finished with a 12-10 record for the Bears and 3.64 ERA in 38 appearances. In 1937, Piechota began the season with Newark and was 3-1 in seven appearances before being sent by the New York Yankees to the Oakland Oaks of the Class AA Pacific Coast League. He was 9-4 with Oakland when the Yankees sent him on the move again at the beginning of August, this time to the Kansas City Blues of the Class AA American Association. He was 3-6 in 11 appearances with the Blues.
Piechota remained with the Blues for the next two seasons, posting records of 10-10 in 1938 and 16-7 in 1939. On September 8, 1939, he was drafted by the Boston Bees – his ticket to the major leagues.
Piechota made his major league debut with the Braves on May 7, 1940 at Forbes Field against the Pittsburgh Pirates. As the starter in that game he lasted just two thirds of an inning, but in his second outing, May 11 against the New York Giants, he hurled three innings of shutout relief. Hampered by injuries for much of the season, in 21 appearances, 13 of them as a relief pitcher, Piechota was 2-5 with a 5.75 ERA.
He was back with the Braves at the beginning of the 1941 season and was favored by manager Casey Stengel as a player who could help the club, but he made just one appearance – a one-inning relief outing against the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 26 – before being sold to the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League in May.
He made just six appearances with the Stars before joining the Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League in June, where he was 2-2 in six appearances. Late in the season, Piechota was again the property of the Boston Bees and assigned to the Hartford Bees of the Class A Eastern League. In December 1941, he was purchased by the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League but returned to the Braves organization in March 1942 because of his draft status. Piechota, who was employed in defense work near Chicago during the winter, told Seals president Charles Graham that if he reported to the West Coast club he would have to return to Chicago May 1 to be reclassified by his draft board.
During 1942, Piechota pitched for the semi-pro Winkler Motors team in Chicago and also pitched for Dizzy Dean’s All-Stars. During 1943 he was with the semi-pro Krier’s Indians of the Midwest League, before being called to military service in 1944.
Piechota served with the U.S. Navy and was initially stationed at Great Lakes Naval Training Station before being assigned for duty in May to Bunker Hill Naval Air Station, Indiana, where he pitched for the Bunker Hill Flying Patriots throughout 1944 and 1945.
During the summer of 1944 he also pitched for the semi-pro Michigan City Cubs and defeated the National League Chicago Cubs, 5-2, on August 8, allowing hits to only Lennie Merullo and Billy Holm while striking out nine.
Discharged from service in the spring of 1946, 32-year-old Piechota pitched for the semi-pro St. Joseph’s Autos of the Michigan-Indiana League that summer. He made a return to professional baseball in 1947, joining the Little Rock Travelers of the Class AA Southern Association and spent three years with the club, posting records of 11-14 in 1947, 11-9 in 1948 and 15-10 in 1949.
In April 1950, he joined the Baltimore Orioles of the International League in a straight swap for Red McQuillen. In 20 appearances with the Orioles, Piechota was 3-3 and was traded to the Toledo Mud Hens of the American Association in August, making seven appearances for a 0-1 record.
Aged 37, Piechota was with the Mud Hens during spring training in 1951 before joining the West Palm Beach Indians of the Class B Florida International League where he was 3-8 with a 3.73 ERA in his final season in organized baseball.
Piechota worked for the Police Department in Chicago for the next 25 years although he continued to pitch for the Chicago police team during the early 1950s. When he retired in January 1977 he was a Police Officer assigned to police headquarters at 11th and State.
Al Piechota passed away at Methodist Hospital in Chicago on June 13, 1996. He was 82 years old and is buried at St. Adalbert Cemetery in Niles, Illinois.
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