Fred Pranter Born: July 7, 1864 Died: January 22, 1933 Goto Baseball Reference for Fred Pranter c Majors: No
	Sioux City Position: c First game: July 4, 1888 Last game: August 9, 1888 # of games: 16	The Evening Kansan (Newton, KS) reported on July 3, 1888 that Pranter and Blanchard signed with Sioux City and left town last night. Released by Sioux City on August 11, 1888 for being absent without permission.

Fred Pranter was born in 1864 (according to his gravestone, 1865 according to his death certificate) in Illinois to Frederick and Wilhemina Pranter. Frederick and Wilhemina immigrated from Vienna, Austria in 1856, eventually settling in Springfield, Missouri. They had thirteen children, nine of whom were still living in 1898 at the time of Frederick's death. (Mother Wilhemina died in 1894.) Pranter was catching for amateur clubs as early as 1885. In 1886 and 1887, he played for Fort Smith, Arkansas in the Southwest League. In 1888, he played with Newton in the Western League, where he was teammates with Julie Freeman (with whom he had also played the season before) and Charlie Blanchard. When Sioux City joined the Western Association, Pranter and Blanchard left Newton to join that club. Pranter played in 15 games for Sioux City before being released in early August.

In 1889, Pranter helped organized a club in Springfield for which he played prior to a stint in Aspen, Colorado. He was in Colorado in July and August of 1889. At the time of his return, the Springfield Daily Leader wrote "He is one of the catchers who does not have to hunt for a club, because the clubs are always hunting for such players as our ex-catcher" (August 14, 1889). He was again involved in organizing a club in Springfield in 1890, and in 1891 he signed to play in Joplin, Missouri. He continued to play for small clubs in Missouri throughout the 1890s (such as the Ozark Invincibles in 1895), along with a stint in Ottumwa, Iowa in 1895 and in Chanute, Kansas in 1896.

When he wasn't playing baseball, Fred Pranter was a painter. His father was a painter, and Fred and brother Arthur ran a painting business together until Arthur's death in 1929. Fred married Anna Pearl Jackson in 1898, and they had three children. When Fred died in January 1933, the Springfield News-Leader ran a full column-length article. He was described as being one of the fathers of baseball in Springfield, "cutting capers on the diamond before Comiskey made the St. Louis Browns famous" (January 24, 1933).