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Frank Stephen (Ping) Bodie, born Francesco Stephano Pezzolo (October 8, 1887 - December 17, 1961), was a center fielder in Major League Baseball who played for the Chicago White Sox (1911-1914), Philadelphia Athletics (1917) and New York Yankees (1919-1921). Bodie batted and threw right handed. He was born in San Francisco, California and graduated from Galileo High School in 1905. One of the most feared sluggers in the 1910s, Bodie was nicknamed "Ping" for the sound made when his fifty-two-ounce bat crashed into the "dead" ball of his era. Another nickname given to him was "The Wonderful Bop." He took the surname Bodie from the California town he once lived in. It said that Bodie provided much of the inspiration Ring Lardner had in creating the famous baseball fictional series You Know Me, Al . Appearing originally in the Saturday Evening Post , the piece was written in the form of letters written by a bush league baseball player to a friend back home.
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