Wertz was signed as a free agent by the Detroit Tigers in 1942, and played in their minor league system until making his major league debut in 1947. He hit for the cycle on September 14, 1947, while in his rookie season with Detroit.[1]
Wertz finished in the Top 15 in MVP voting five times: 1949 (10th), 1950 (10th), 1956 (9th), 1957 (6th), and 1960 (14th).
Wertz was among the Top 10 in the American League in home runs in 1949 (20), 1950 (27), 1951 (27), 1952 (23), 1953 (19), 1956 (32), and 1957 (28). His 1956 total of 32 home runs was second best in the AL. For his career, Wertz hit 266 home runs and 1,178 RBIs with a .469 career slugging average and a .364 career on-base percentage.
Wertz was elected to the American League All-Star team four times (1949, 1951, 1952 and 1957). He missed part of the 1955 season when stricken with a nonparalytic form of polio, but returned in 1956.
Wertz started 1954 as a member of the newly formed Baltimore Orioles, who had moved from St. Louis, where they had played as the Browns. The Orioles played in the then mammoth Memorial Stadium, that frustrated the power-hitting left-handed batter. On June 1, 1954, he was traded by the Baltimore Orioles to the Cleveland Indians for Bob Chakales. When Wertz was traded, he was hitting only .202 with one home run after 29 games. He immediately became the starting first baseman for the Indians, replacing Bill Glynn, who held down the position the previous year.[2]
In the 1954 World Series, Wertz hit a long fly ball that Willie Mays caught, known as "The Catch". It went over 400 feet (120 m) to dead center of the Polo Grounds in New York,[3] and a sportswriter said, "It would have been a home run in any other park, including Yellowstone."[4]
After he retired from playing, Wertz kept a photo of “The Catch” in his office at his beer distribution company and explained he had no negative feelings about being remembered for hitting a deep fly out. "I'm very proud that I'm associated with it," Wertz told UPI in 1979. "I look at it this way: If that ball Willie caught had been a home run or a triple, how many people would've remembered me? Not many. This way, everybody who meets me for the first time always identifies me with Willie's catch, and that makes me feel good."[4]
Vic Wertz Field at the Berks County Youth Recreation Facility in Pennsylvania is named in his honor. The field was dedicated on April 19, 2013.[4]
Personal life
Wertz was a World War II veteran. During and after his baseball career, Wertz worked in the Detroit area beer distribution business .[citation needed] When he retired to Mount Clemens, Michigan, he formed "Wertz Warriors", a group of sportsmen who raised funds for the Special Olympics Winter Games.[citation needed] He was the founder of an 800-mile snowmobile endurance ride, run annually in Michigan starting in 1982 to benefit the Special Olympics.[5]
