![]() 12, 1975, a photograph in the Post-Bulletin showed Wera holding a picture of the 1927 Yankees. When Julian Wera died at home of a heart attack on Dec. “Obviously (the stadium) had changed a great deal from 1927, but still, just to be there in that space and realize that as a young man of 25, this is where he was,” she said. In 1972, he became a member of the Rochester Planning and Zoning Commission.ĭuring an interview with the Post Bulletin, MaryAnn Remick fondly recalled taking a trip to Yankee stadium in 1973 with her family, nieces and nephews to watch a game in the stadium’s final year. “As a young man of 25, this is where he was”Īfter Wera-the real Julian Wera-retired from 25 years of full-time work at Piggly Wiggly, he took a job as a part-time meat-cutter at the new Barlow Foods store in Rochester. In early 1948, an impostor-a man claiming to be Julian Wera-used Wera’s baseball history to land a job as the manager of the Oroville Red Sox, a minor league club in Oroville, Calif. “Julie Wera-the REAL Julie Wera-Slightly Bewildered, Definitely Alive,” read the Post-Bulletin story on Sept. ![]() 13, 1948, announced “the death of Julian Wera, a member of the fabled 1927 New York Yankees.” The front page of the Oroville (California) Mercury-Register on Sept. Wera often sat in the stands at local ballgames, a “bird dog” scout who would send tips on talented young players to his contacts in the big leagues. It was incredible to watch him fillet a fish.”īut baseball beckoned still. He would take kids down there and work with them on baseball. We lived about a block from a grassy park area. “He would listen to ballgames quite a bit when he could. “He was very outgoing and friendly, very verbal and talkative with anybody,” Remick told the Society for American Baseball Research. most days,” said Wera’s daughter, MaryAnn Remick, who, along with husband Jack, have long been well-respected philanthropists in Rochester. “He really worked a lot of hours at the grocery store, six days a week, 8 a.m. When his playing days ended, Wera went to work at the Rochester Piggly Wiggly store. Son Tom, in 1940, and daughter Mary Ann, in 1942. Son John was born just before Christmas 1932. Meanwhile, in 1931 he married the former Dorothy Fischer, a Winona school teacher, and the couple settled in Rochester, where they would raise their family. “I was getting paid for something I loved,” he later said.įor the next few years, Wera prolonged his career by playing on minor league teams in Jersey City, San Francisco, Syracuse, Toronto and Crookston, Minn. 278 batting average, with one homer and 10 RBIs. In two seasons with the Yankees, Wera appeared in 43 games, and had a. He made it back to the Yankees in 1929, but appeared in only five games in what would be his final year in the majors. But in a collision at home plate later that season, Wera suffered a severe knee injury. On July 4, he hit his first (and only) major league home run in a game against Washington. Wera, a third baseman, spent the 1927 season with the Yankees as a backup. ![]() “He was a Catholic man, and so was I,” Wera said. “It was my aggressiveness that got me into the majors.”Īs a rookie, one of Wera’s jobs was to wake up Babe Ruth on Sunday mornings and get him to church. ![]() “I was small, but I hit the ball pretty good,” Wera, who was five feet, seven inches tall and weighed all of 155 pounds, later told the Post-Bulletin. The Yankees were a talented bunch, so it was a surprise when Wera made the 1927 team out of spring training. In 1926, his contract was purchased by the Yankees. He attracted the attention of scouts and made his professional debut in 1924 as a member of the St. ![]() It turned out he could play ball extremely well. Wera had started playing the game as a boy on the Gabrych Park diamond in his Winona neighborhood. Gehrig, in fact, was the son of German immigrants and grew up speaking German at home. The Major Leagues were filled with the sons of first- and second-generation newcomers. On the side, Wera played baseball, a game popular with the children of immigrants, in part because it allowed them to leave the old country behind. ![]()
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