The "Lancaster Native, Baseball Player Don Wert, Dies At 86 Story"

It was an ordinary day.  Just opened my computer and began reading about Don Wert, a Strasburg native and the starting third baseman for the 1968 World Series champion Detroit Tigers, who died at his home in Strasburg early Sunday.  

Wert, who had suffered a series of strokes over the past decade, was 86 years old. He played in the major leagues from 1963-71, all for the Tigers except for his final 20 games, playing with the Washington Senators in 1971.  “My dad was very private, an introverted kind of guy, and he wouldn’t really talk about much,” Wert’s son Scott said Sunday.  “The interesting thing was, if you engaged him in baseball talk, he would talk and talk and talk, and that’s how he would tell you his story.  “He was very proud of baseball and being with the Tigers, and that was how he sort of defined himself.’’  Wert was a three-sport star at Solanco High School in Lancaster County and briefly attended Franklin & Marshall College on an athletic scholarship.  He was signed by the Tigers organization in 1958, began his career in the minors, and by 1964, at age 24, had become the Tigers’ everyday third baseman. He finished 10th in voting for the American League Most Valuable Player award in 1965, and made the AL all-star team during the 1968 season.  Wert had a modest .242 career batting average but was known for key hits in big moments.  He had the game-winning single — in the ninth inning, with two outs, driving home Hall of Famer Al Kaline — in the Tigers’ AL pennant-clinching defeat of the New York Yankees late in the ’68 season.  “(When) I got to first base to touch the base, the field was loaded with fans,” Wert said in a 2018 interview with LNP | LancasterOnline’s Jeff Young in 2018.  “They all came out of the stands and I had trouble getting back to the dugout. The grounds crew came out and surrounded me, and got me back to the dugout.  Wert also had a critical single, off Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Gibson, in Game Seven of the 1968 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Tigers came back from a 3-1 deficit to win that series.  The Tigers have won just one World Series title since, in 1984. Overall, the franchise, which began in 1894, has won four titles in its history. Wert’s 1968 team is beloved, in part, for their role in bringing a troubled city together during a violent summer in Detroit and many American cities.  “It was a time when the city was really down,” Wert told Young. “There were the riots. ... The Tigers pulled the city together.”  The camaraderie continued for decades, as Wert and his teammates attended reunions, old-timers games, fantasy camps and the like.  After retiring as a player, Wert stayed involved in baseball as a coach and umpire.  He was the head coach at F&M from 1977 through 1981.  Jack Frank, who coached at Elizabethtown High School in the 1980s, invited Wert to speak at a summer camp he held in southern Lancaster County.  “He was great with those kids,’’ Frank recalled Sunday. “He took time to talk to each one. Very, very personable. He sat and ate with them. “The thing I remember most is, we had a pitching machine and a batting cage, and he couldn’t resist getting in there. He hit until his hands bled, and, I mean, he was smashing the ball. The kids got to see what major-league bat speed was like.’’  Wert last got together with his teammates at the 50th reunion of the 1968 team in Detroit in 2018. He was 80 at the time.  Wert last got together with his teammates at the 50th reunion of the 1968 team in Detroit in 2018. He was 80 at the time.  He’s survived by his wife Marla, son Scott, daughters Barbara Hess and Kimberly Myers, and grandchildren Julia and Mason Myers.  Don was one of the very few professional baseball players from the Lancaster area who was successful in the big leagues.  I am sorry that I never had the chance to meet him, but still enjoyed hearing stories about him.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.