Vic Power

In 1946 Pellot started to practice with a local baseball team called the Senadores de San Juan (San Juan Senators) and learned many of his baseball skills. He was later invited to play for the Criollos de Caguas, where he was spotted by a New York Yankees scout. In 1949, he left for the City of Chicago and went to play for a minor league team in Drummondville, Quebec.

Pellot was signed by the Yankees in 1951, and sent to the Syracuse Chiefs of the Class AAA International League. In 1952, Pellot played for the Kansas City Blues of the Class AAA American Association, where he led the league in doubles and triples, while posting a .331 batting average. The next season, Pellot led the league with a .349 batting average. However, despite his skills he was not invited to spring training in either year.

On December 16, 1953, Pellot was traded by the Yankees, along with Don Bollweg, Jim Finigan, Johnny Gray, Bill Renna, Jim Robertson, and $25,000 to the Philadelphia Athletics for Loren Babe, Harry Byrd, Tom Hamilton, Carmen Mauro and Eddie Robinson, thus becoming the first Puerto Rican to play for that team. Suffering from the racial discrimination which was rampant in the nation during that time, Pellot could neither stay with the rest of the team at the same hotels nor be allowed to eat at the same restaurants as his white teammates. The Athletics moved to Kansas City in 1955, where he finished in second place in the batting race. Pellot is one of only six batters, as of August 7, 2010, to have hit both a leadoff and walk-off home run in the same game (having done so in 1957), the others being Billy Hamilton (1893), Darin Erstad (2000), Reed Johnson (2003), Ian Kinsler (2009), and Chris Young (2010).

In 1958, Pellot was sent to the Cleveland Indians. During his 12-year career, he played with the Philadelphia / Kansas City Athletics (1954–58), Cleveland Indians (1958–61), Minnesota Twins (1962–64), Los Angeles Angels (1964), Philadelphia Phillies (1964), and California Angels (1965).

Before retiring, Pellot won seven consecutive Gold Glove Awards from when the award was first introduced in 1958 to 1964. He made the American League All-Star team with the Kansas City Athletics in 1955 and 1956 and the Cleveland Indians in 1959 and 1960 (two games were played both seasons). Pellot was also voted the Minnesota Twins Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 1962. He has the record of having made one or more assists in 16 consecutive games. He shares the record of making two unassisted double plays in one game, and he is one of 11 players to steal home plate twice in one game, and he also shares the record of being assists leader for six years in a row and of double plays in a single game. Among his career totals are the following: 1,716 hits and 126 home runs, and he was only struck out 247 times out of 6,046 at bats.

Pellot's choice of name caused resentment and alienation, particularly in his home land of Puerto Rico. In a letter to historian Bill Haber in 1993, Pellot gave his real, full name as Victor Felipe Pellot Pove; Pove being his mother's maiden name and Pellot his father's surname (as is traditional in Hispanic culture; see Roberto Enrique Clemente Walker). However, when his mother, Maximina Pove, was in the first grade, her teacher changed her last name, changing the "v" to a "w" and adding an "r" at the end.

Pellot spent his retirement in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. The city built a ballpark, which he could see from the window of his apartment, and named it "Parque Victor Pellot" (Victor Pellot Park), after him. During the summers, he helped youngsters develop their baseball skills in both Puerto Rico and San Pedro de Macorís in the Dominican Republic. According to historian Bill James, Pellot was probably a main reason why San Pedro de Macorís became "the world's richest source of baseball talent". According to Pellot, young people would most likely stay away from trouble and have a better opportunity to enter college on sports scholarships if they practiced sports. Pellot also coached, and among his pupils, either as a coach or as an educator of the sport were future standout big league players Roberto Alomar, José Oquendo, Jerry Morales, Willie Montañez, and José Cruz. Pellot died on November 29, 2005, in Bayamón, Puerto Rico from cancer, at the age of 78.

Pellot has been considered by many Puerto Ricans to be one of the island's greatest baseball players, a legend only surpassed by Roberto Clemente. In 2005, he spoke about his baseball career in the American documentary Beisbol, directed by Alan Swyer and narrated by Esai Morales, which covers the early influences and contributions of Hispanics to baseball. In 2000, the Cleveland Indians honored him by declaring him to be among its 100 all-time greatest players. He was named the 81st greatest first baseman in Major League history by historian Bill James in his book "The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract".