he made his big league debut at the age of 25 on june 26, 1969 against pitcher grant jackson and the rest of the philadelphia phillies. pfeil went 1-for-4 in his debut, although jackson shut the mets out 2-0 and held them to just four hits. in addition, he collected ten strikeouts in that game. pfeil did well during the first two weeks of his debut - he was hitting .333 on july 4 - but by july 31 his batting average had slumped to .232. coincidentally, that is what his final batting average for the season would end up being. after july 31, he was able to pull his average above .240 only once, and he let is slip down to .217 at one point. however, after going 3-for-6 in the final two games of the season, he brought his average up to its final mark of .232. in 211 at-bats, he also scored 20 runs, drove 10 runs in, doubled nine times, tripled and homered zero times, walked seven times and struck out 27 times.