inside-the-park home run. Petoskey led the Big Ten Conference in batting in 1934, with 19 hits in 42 at bats for a .452 batting average. Professional baseball Immediately after graduating, Petoskey and Michigan teammate Whitey Wistert both signed with the Cincinnati Reds, reporting to the team in early June 1934. Petoskey made his major league debut on September 9, 1934, and Wistert made his debut two days later. Petoskey played in six games in 1934, where he went hitless and struck out five times in seven at bats. On the last day of the 1934 regular season, Petoskey was a strikeout victim of Dizzy Dean in the ninth inning of Dean's 30th win of the year. When the baseball season ended, Petoskey and Wistert both returned to Ann Arbor, Michigan in early October, where they were given coaching assignments helping Ray Fisher teach fundamentals and offering personal tutoring to the freshman football team. Petoskey returned to the Reds in 1935, but after spring training he was assigned to the minor leagues. He played for the Wilmington Pirates in the Piedmont League for most of the 1935 season, where he was hitting .426 to lead the league in early June. The Reds called up Petoskey in June, and one newspaper noted that when he was called up, Petoskey was "batting above the .400 mark, leading the (Piedmont) league in home runs, runs driven in and practically everything else." He was two-for-five with a stolen base and a .400 batting average in four games for the 1935 Reds, but he played his last game for the Reds on June 20, 1935. Petoskey played for the Durham Bulls in the Piedmont League in 1936, where he was hitting .428 in late May. He played for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1937, where he was leading the International League in base hits in mid-June. He continued to play with the Leafs in 1938 and 1939, before being sold to the Toledo Mud Hens in July 1939. He was released by Toledo in March 1940. Coaching career Basketball coach at South Carolina During the off-season from his summer job as a minor league baseball player, Petoskey coached the University of South Carolina basketball team from 1935 to 1940. In five seasons as the Gamecocks' head coach, the team had a record of 36–67. South Carolina and Wofford (1940–47) Until 1940, Petoskey had been coaching in