Oliver Daniel Pickering (April 9, 1870 – January 20, 1952) was an American professional baseball outfielder and manager in a 30-year career that spanned from the 1892 Houston Mudcats to the 1922 Paducah Indians.

[2] Pickering is credited with giving baseball the term "Texas leaguer", a pejorative slang for a weak pop fly that lands unimpressively between an infielder and an outfielder for a base hit.

According to the April 21, 1906, edition of The Sporting Life, John McCloskey, founder of the Texas League and then-manager of the Houston Mudcats – who would later go onto manage the St. Louis Cardinals – signed 22-year-old Pickering to play center field on the morning of May 21, 1892.

[5][6] On April 24, 1901, Pickering was the leadoff batter for the Cleveland Blues (precursor to the Indians), which was the visiting team facing the Chicago White Sox in the first game ever played in the American League.

William Hoy, a deaf-mute who was cruelly nicknamed Dummy, caught the routine fly, and with that the American League was officially underway.