 During his playing days, he was more commonly known as Hardy Peterson.A graduate of Rutgers University, where he was a full-season starter on the third-place College World Series team in 1950 and second-team College All American that same year, Peterson spent the first three-plus decades of his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates as a minor and MLB player, minor league manager, farm system director and general manager.A right-handed batter and thrower, he appeared in 65 major league games over four seasons (1955; 1957–59) and batted .273 with three home runs in limited service, due to a two-year stint in Korea with the U.S. Army.