Welcome to Baseball History Podcast, featuring baseball biographies. I’m your announcer Bob Wright.
This is game 42 of the 2011 baseball season.
In the first inning let’s take a look at This Week in Baseball History for the 4 week of October.
October 22
1929 Phillies’ catcher Walt Lerian, age 26, is killed when a truck hits him.
Walter Irvin Lerian, nicknamed “Peck”, was born February 10, 1903 in Baltimore, Maryland.
Showing great promise as the leading member of the Philadelphia Phillies’ young receiving corps at the close of the 1920s, Lerian also stood out as the starting guard for the Hagerstown Elks basketball team many years before the founding of the National Basketball Association. Ultimately forsaking his basketball career to play major-league baseball, he joined the Philadelphia Phillies for the launch of the 1928 season and progressed from a seldom-used bench warmer and occasional pinch hitter to become the team’s primary catcher by mid-summer. At the conclusion of the 1929 season, just as he was coming into his own, his life and career were tragically cut short by an out-of-control vehicle.
It was while playing in hometown games that he received his nickname, using his cannon-like arm to throw out potential base stealers while still crouching or kneeling behind the plate. Gifted with exceptionally long, strong arms, he would reach back and rifle the ball to second base. While unleashing these bullet-like throws his right arm would stretch across his body on the follow-through, with his hand quickly brushing the dirt. When practicing his snap throws, making several tosses in rapid-fire succession, his friends said that the way his hand grazed the ground then snapped back up made him look like “a chicken peckin’ corn,” and the nickname “Peck” stuck with him for the rest of his life.
While Lerian rose steadily through the minor leagues, William F. Baker’s Philadelphia Phillies were mired in the National League’s second division year after year. The forlorn team, starting a patchwork squad of hand-me-downs and young players signed to low-cost contracts, struggled to draw fans to the vacant stands at the Baker Bowl.
As the team’s 1928 spring training camp opened, team captain Jimmie Wilson was slated to handle the majority of games behind the plate. However, in the first week of exhibition contests he injured his finger trying to catch a foul tip. The thought of entering the season with no better backup catcher than the untested Johnny Schulte and incapable Harry O’Donnell prompted new Phillies manager Burt Shotton to rapidly hunt for available, bargain-priced catchers. Just before the Phillies opened their City Series with the cross-town Philadelphia Athletics they selected Lerian, New Haven’s star catcher, whose salary requirements—enough to replace the money he would lose by “retiring” from basketball—still fit into Baker’s limited budget.
Lerian quickly showed that he could be much more than a backup for the hapless Phillies. Although his hitting suffered to some extent against major-league pitching, his glove work behind the plate showed such promise that Baker started shopping the highly regarded but comparably expensive Wilson elsewhere, looking to acquire some cheap talent and much-needed operating capital.
Lerian rode the bench as the season started, learning the team’s signs and pitchers’ styles while the Phillies showcased Jimmie Wilson in hopes of eliciting trade offers. He made the most of his time in the dugout, creating what he called his “little black book,” a small pocket notebook in which he compiled the pitching techniques and penchants for each of the Phillies hurlers he would be catching along with the hitting preferences and tendencies of every batter the Phillies faced.
Lerian’s role with the team changed dramatically on May 11. Without warning Shotton pulled Jimmie Wilson out of the lineup in the second inning of the Phillies’ game against the Cardinals and it was announced that the Phillies’ star catcher had been traded to the opposition. By the end of May Lerian was starting most of the games behind the plate.
Throughout June, Lerian enjoyed a number of career firsts and established new monthly highs in virtually every offensive category. He commenced a modest five-game hitting streak and became a local hero in Philadelphia on June 19, driving in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning of the first game of a scheduled doubleheader against the Robins. With the score 10–9 in the Robins’ favor, Heinie Sand on first, and Pinky Whitney on second with one out, Lerian stepped to the plate. Brooklyn manager Wilbert Robinson tapped flamethrower Dazzy Vance to stop the comeback attempt. Vance started with a ball outside, then caught too much of the plate with his next offering, which Lerain laced down the third base-line. Whitney and Sand both hurried home, and Lerian ended up on third base with a game-ending triple.
Lerian capped his breakthrough month with his first major-league home run on June 27. Down 7–4 in the top of the eighth inning against the Giants at the Polo Grounds, Phillies manager Shotton tapped Lerian to bat for pitcher Claude Willoughby. Facing Vic Aldridge, Lerian wasted no time at the plate, promptly hitting a game-tying home run that sent Aldridge to the showers. Lerian’s offensive emergence, during which he batted .414, continued into early July, with three consecutive multi-hit games from June 30 through July 3.
Inevitably his production declined, and as Lerian’s bat cooled, so did the Phillies, finishing the season in a 25–65 skid. On September 26 in the Phillies’ last game against the Cubs, Lerian had one final highlight, hitting his second career home run. Almost inevitably, the Phillies lost the game, kicking off their final three-game losing streak of the season.
As the season mercifully ended, Lerian—along with fellow rookie Chuck Klein, stood out as bright spots in a miserable season in Philadelphia. According to John Kieran of the New York Times, Rogers Hornsby called Lerian “the best young catcher he has seen come up in quite a while.”
During the season, in addition to finding success on the diamond, Lerian found love off the field. He met a young Philadelphia lady who swept him off his feet. As their relationship blossomed they began making plans to wed before the start of the 1929 season. At the close of the season Lerian’s fiancée fell ill, and he stayed at her side while she recovered. As the winter progressed, so did her illness, and she was unable to recover her health. In a tragic end to his romance, his fiancée died before they could wed, and Lerian returned home with a broken heart.
In late February Lerian packed his baseball gear in a trunk and, with a heavy heart, boarded the Phillies’ train to Winter Haven, Florida. When the train arrived in Winter Haven the next day, it was discovered that Lerian’s trunk carrying his baseball shoes and catching gear had been lost en route.
Without his baseball gear—especially his comfortable shoes—Lerian could only offer encouragement to his teammates as they loosened up in the Phillies’ first-ever Sunday warm-up. In an effort to get their star catcher into the action, several of his teammates offered to loan him their shoes for the unprecedented workout, but none fit well enough for Lerian to play. The Phillies had a day off on Tuesday, which allowed Lerian to find a new pair of shoes and some catching equipment before the balance of the team arrived in camp.
During spring training Lerian quickly developed a bond, with new teammate Lefty O’Doul. During batting practice, Lerian’s newfound friend had noticed a deficiency in Lerian’s swing and offered some “help” with his batting. Trying in vain to follow Lefty’s suggestions, along with the lingering effects of a broken heart, Lerian would endure a season-long slump at the plate.
The team broke out of the cellar, but still could not reach the first division, finishing in fifth place, 27½ games behind the Cubs. Throughout the season, Lerian was charged with primary catching duties.
Lerian’s last major-league game was record-setting affair. In the first game of the Giants-Phillies doubleheader on October 5, Mel Ott and Chuck Klein entered the game tied with 42 home runs each. Klein homered off of Carl Hubbell to take the lead, after which the Phillies pitchers walked Ott six times to secure the title for Klein. With his 43rd home run, Klein broke Rogers Hornsby’s single-season National League home run record. Lerian ended his career going 1–3 for the day, raising his lifetime average to .246.
At the conclusion of the season, the New York Times named him the top-fielding catcher in the National League.
Lerian stayed in Philadelphia after the Phillies disbanded, watching the A’s defeat the Chicago Cubs in the World Series. On October 15, he returned home to Baltimore, where he quickly reunited with his sandlot acquaintances and began playing. Lerian played his final game, an exhibition match on Sunday, October 20, between the Baltimore All-Stars and the Baltimore Black Sox, featuring Negro League stars Dick Lundy and Oliver “Ghost” Marcelle. He had one hit in a losing effort, but kept the speedy Black Sox in check, allowing just two stolen bases on the day.
On Monday, October 21, Lerian attended a Redemptorist sermon at St. Martin’s Church. During the sermon, the preacher admonished attendees to live an honorable life, because no one knows the hour or day that the end may come. Following the service, Lerian walked to the trolley stop at the corner of Fayette and Mount streets to catch a ride home. While he waited, a car driven by August Meyers nearly collided with a Hecht’s delivery truck, driven by Charles Lloyd. In an effort to avoid a collision, Lloyd swerved and lost control of his truck. The vehicle headed straight toward a group of children playing on the street. Given just a moment to act, Lloyd swerved again, missing the children. His truck jumped the curb, crashing through the trolley stop. Lerian, without a moment to react, was caught as the truck plowed into a brick building.
The impact of the collision tore a hole in the building, and trapped Lerian between the truck and crushed wall. It took over an hour to remove him from the accident site. A passing motorist rushed him to the hospital where Lerian was diagnosed with severe body bruises, internal injuries, and multiple broken bones. His doctor optimistically described his condition as “serious.”
Upon hearing word of the accident, fifty men from St. Martin’s and six Baltimore firefighters lined up to offer blood for a badly needed transfusion. Two St. Martin’s donors were selected, and when the doctors felt that Lerian was strong enough to withstand the transfusion, a risky procedure in those days, the donors each gave a pint of blood. Before the transfusion was completed, Peck succumbed to his injuries.
Peck Lerian died October 22, 1929 in Baltimore Maryland at age 26.
While Lerian’s time in the major leagues may be largely forgotten, his place in Maryland baseball history is not. Lerian was inducted into the Oldtimer’s Baseball Association of Maryland Hall of Fame in 1959, recognizing his position as one of Maryland’s baseball greats—one whose life and career were cut tragically short.
A large part of this biography comes from the SABR Baseball Biography Project written by T. Scott Brandon. It can be found online at http://bioproj.sabr.org
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Well, that’s it for today’s Baseball History Podcast. I’ll see you later at the ballpark.
