Walt Lerian is not a figure regarded these days in baseball circles. Swept away by the sands of time, the name of the former Philadelphia Phillies catcher is long forgotten by those who watched him play. But there was a time when Lerian was considered the future of the catching position by some of baseball’s great figures of the 1920s.
Lerian was born in Baltimore in 1903 and grew up as a dual-threat athlete on the basketball court and baseball diamond. As a young man, he learned from the veterans of the International League's Baltimore Orioles. At the time, they were one of the best lower-circuit teams ever assembled, led by future Hall of Famer Lefty Grove and soon-to-be MLB stars like Tommy Thomas, Max Bishop, and Jack Bentley. The team finished the season 119-47, after shipping Lerian out to an affiliate in the Blue Ridge League.
With Lerian as his family’s primary breadwinner, he jumped from minor league squad to minor league squad, keeping his baseball seasons short enough to earn winter salaries from his basketball career. From the York White Roses to the Birmingham Barons to the New Haven Profs, Lerian remained one of the elite catching prospects of his era.
So, when William Baker’s Philadelphia Phillies had their starting catcher injured just before Opening Day in 1928, they turned to Lerian as a cheap alternative to signing Major-League talent.
With the Phillies mired in one of their regular slumps, they turned to Lerian as their primary backstop in late May and never looked back. He hit a very respectable .272 with a .385 OBP as other teams began to take notice of the upstart Phillies catcher.
According to John Kieran of the New York Times, Rogers Hornsby called Peck “the best young catcher he has seen come up in quite a while.”
And after a 1929 season in which his hitting faltered somewhat, the New York Times named Lerian the best fielding catcher in the NL.
The Phillies might have been hapless, finishing the ‘28 and ‘29 seasons with 43 and 71 wins, respectively, but they had an inspiring young talent on their hands.
On October 20, 1929, Lerian played his final baseball game: an exhibition match between the Baltimore All-Stars and the Baltimore Black Sox, featuring Negro League stars Dick Lundy and Oliver “Ghost” Marcelle.
The sad end of a promising career
The next day, after Lerian exited a Redemptorist sermon at St. Martin’s Church. An out-of-control motorist swerved to avoid hitting a truck. Suddenly, the driver had to choose between slamming headlong into a group of children or swerving again into the bystanding Lerian. He chose the latter, and Lerian was caught between the vehicle and a brick building.
He suffered severe bruising, internal injuries, and multiple broken bones. Upon hearing the news, fifty men from St. Martin's and six Baltimore firefighters lined up to offer blood for a transfusion. It wasn’t enough to save Lerian, and he passed away on October 22.
Over 1,000 individuals were said to have attended his funeral mass at St. Martin’s, including several Major Leaguers. John McGraw reportedly coveted Peck in a trade to the New York Giants; he was negotiating with the Phillies before the accident.
McGraw said he was “the future catching star of the National League.”
Lerian could have had an illustrious career, and though the Phillies likely would have sold him, as they did with all their young talent back then, he had a promising career ahead of him. Who knows what baseball in Philadelphia might look like today if Lerian hadn't been on that corner that day.
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