Born on November 21, 1865 as Parke B. Swartzel in Knightstown, Indiana, USA, he began his first of professional baseball season in 1886, at the age of 20, with the Leavenworth Soldiers of the Western League. He began the 1887 season with the Soldiers, however he is also credited with playing for the Lincoln Tree Planters, another Western League team. For the 1888 season, Swartzel played for the Kansas City Blues of the Western Association, a class-A level league.\n', '

His only season in Major League Baseball came in 1889 with the Kansas City Cowboys of the American Association. He made his major league debut on April 17, a 7–4 victory over the Louisville Colonels in the team\'s season opener. The Cowboys finished the season with a win–loss record of 55–82 with two ties with Swartzel making 48 appearances as a pitcher, starting 47 and completing 45. Swartzel had a win–loss record of 19–27, 147 strikeouts and a 4.32 ERA, in 410​1⁄3 innings pitched, and allowed a league-leading 481 hits, and 21 home runs, along with 334 runs, 197 earned runs and 117 bases on balls. He made his final major league appearance on October 14, a 7–5 victory over the Colonels.\n', '

Swartzel returned the Blues for the 1890 and 1891 seasons, then split the 1892 season with the Rochester Flour Cities of the Eastern League and the Minneapolis Minnies of the Western league. This was his last season, on record, of his professional baseball career, although he was noted to have been released by the Grand Rapids Rustlers of the Western League in May 1896. He died on January 3, 1940 in Los Angeles, California, USA, and is interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California.\n', '

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