Pius L. Schwert
Pius Louis Schwert was a politician and baseball player. He was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from New York.
Schwert was born in Angola, New York. He graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1914. He played baseball for the New York Yankees from 1914 until 1915. He opened a general store in Angola in 1916, and played minor league baseball for the Newark Indians in 1916 and the Mobile Sea Gulls in 1917.
He served in the United States Navy during World War I, serving first at the Bremerton Navy Yard, and later at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. He attained the rank of ensign before his discharge at the end of the war.
Schwert worked at the Bank of Angola after the war, and served as its president from 1921 to 1931. He also played for the minor league Buffalo Bisons from 1920 to 1922.
He was Erie County Clerk from 1934 to 1938. In 1938 Schwert was elected to Congress. He was reelected in 1940, and served from January 3, 1939 until his death in Washington, D.C. on March 11, 1941. He was buried at Forest Avenue Cemetery in Angola.
Although Jacob Ruppert had served in Congress before buying the Yankees in 1915, Schwert is the only former Yankee to have served in Congress.
