Pete Burnside was best known for a career in Major League Baseball and then a long run as teacher and coach at New Trier High School. Yet his son, Jim Burnside, remembers the kind of person he was at home.

“He was kind, loyal and gave great advice and he was a person who was soft-spoken but had high expectations to work hard, do your best and have fun and take pride in who you are as a person,” Jim Burnside recalled.

After a substantive career in baseball and then a quarter-century as a teacher and coach at New Trier, Pete Burnside, 92, died of natural causes in late August, according to his son, now New Trier’s assistant athletic director.

Pete Burnside was born at Evanston Hospital and grew up in Wilmette raised by a single mother. He attended New Trier, capitalizing on an interest in athletics. Burnside, 6′4″ played basketball, but his son said by his sophomore year he was getting attention as a left-handed pitcher.

“His claim to fame was he could throw really hard,” Jim Burnside said.

Following his graduation from New Trier, Burnside signed a professional contract at the age of 19 with the New York Giants, but was allowed to attend Dartmouth University and pitch for the Giants organization in the summers in an arrangement cultivated by a family friend.

After graduating from Dartmouth in 1952, Burnside joined the U.S. Army in the 1952, but his athletic career continued as he pitched for a team on a Missouri army base that captured the 1953 National Baseball Congress World Series.

After leaving the military, Burnside, who sold clothes at Winnetka’s iconic Fell Department Store in the off-season, moved up within the Giants organization, making his Major League Baseball debut in 1955, according to baseball-reference.com.

Burnside pitched for the Giants both in New York and then in San Francisco after the franchise moved west following the 1957 season.

He stayed in the majors through 1963, playing with the Detroit Tigers, Baltimore Orioles and Washington Senators.

“He loved the competition and he loved the physical nature of playing baseball and he loved the mental side of the game as a pitcher,” Jim Burnside said.

During his MLB career, he was teammates with Hall of Famers Willie Mays, Orlando Cepeda and Al Kaline and became close friends with Don Zimmer, remembered locally for his run as Cubs manager from 1988-1991.

Among those who saw Burnside play was Hall of Famer Jim Kaat, who until recently was a longtime Minnesota Twins broadcaster.

“I remember Pete very well. I watched every lefty with great interest. I saw him in action when he was with the Senators in the early ‘60s,” Kaat wrote.

Burnside’s professional career concluded with two seasons in Japan as he decided to focus on his family. He returned to the area and earned a Master’s degree from Northwestern University. After briefly working at an investment house, Burnside started working at New Trier, both as a teacher and coaching baseball, basketball and cross country.

He was particularly interested in physical fitness for students, working on a course titled “Lifeline” where students could decide their own health program, his son said.

“They worked really hard to try and work on the science of how you could stay healthy,” Burnside said. “It was a good step in social emotional learning in the P.E. department and trying to stay healthy. He was extremely proud of that.”

Burnside added many students viewed his father as a mentor.

“His soft-spoken demeanor helped them get through tough times in high school or just helped them enjoy their high school experience as an athlete or a student,” he recalled.

Upon retiring from New Trier in 1994 after 25 years with the school, Burnside moved to Wisconsin, where he could pursue his interest in the outdoors.

“He loved to work the land, he loved to cut wood and just be in the natural environment. It was a passion for him to be around nature,” Burnside said.

Burnside is survived by wife of 56 years, Suzette; two sons, Jim and John, a New Trier science teacher and a daughter, Beth, along with eight grandchildren.

A private family service is planned for the future.

Daniel I. Dorfman is a freelance reporter with Pioneer Press.

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