Ex-major leaguer is living history

100-year-old Bill Werber still recalls days with the Babe

Happy birthday, Bill Werber. The oldest living major league baseball player turns 100 today in a south Charlotte retirement community. In front of about 85 friends and family, with a plate of fried chicken and barbecue, he will celebrate hitting the century mark.

Check that.

"I'm not celebrating it," Werber said. "I'm tolerating it."

Werber is by turns merry and cantankerous. He boasts a full head of white hair, zips around in a motorized wheelchair and lives alone in an apartment at The Carriage Club retirement complex. He remembers stories about playing alongside Babe Ruth 75 years ago more easily than he remembers his daughter's address. A conversation with Werber opens a fascinating window into a world most of us never experienced -- a world where roads were unpaved, haircuts were 35 cents and baseball on the radio was king.

I ate lunch with Werber the other day, carefully timing the visit to occur before his afternoon nap. His daughter Pat Bryant instructed me to sit on his left side and speak slowly and distinctly toward his left ear. But any fears I had of a one-sided interview were quickly allayed.

"I'm still sharp," Werber told me early in the interview, grinning wickedly. And he is. Words like "bellicose" and "interlocutor" rolled off his tongue. He told me about his first-ever at bat in the major leagues, in 1930 for the New York Yankees, offhandedly remembering the name of the pitcher, catcher and plate umpire.

Werber took two strikes and then four straight balls, never lifting the bat off his shoulder.

"I was too scared to move," he said. "Paralyzed."

Ruth came up a couple of batters later and slammed a deep ball to right.

"I knew it was going into the right-field bleachers," Werber said. "But I said to myself, 'I'll show these Yankees how fast I can run.' So I put on a burst of speed and ran around the bases. The third-base coach was hollering for me to slow down, but I ran on in at full speed. I crossed home plate before Babe got to first base -- he took those little mincing steps, you know. When Babe came in to the dugout, he sat on the bench beside me. He patted me on the head and said, 'Son, you don't have to run like that when the Babe hits one.' "

Werber was a superb athlete, a third baseman who played in the majors for 11 years at the height of the Depression, ending his career in 1942. He was a good player, not a great one, who led the league in stolen bases three times. He won a World Series in 1940 with the Cincinnati Reds, when he batted .370 in the series and had 10 hits.

As a 5-foot-10 guard, Werber also was the first All-American basketball player Duke ever had, in 1930. But the NBA didn't exist then, and so if you were going to make a living in sports, baseball was your shot.

Werber grew up in what is now College Park, Md., home of the University of Maryland. He spent most of his life following baseball back in Maryland, working at the insurance agency his father founded. Although he never made more than $13,500 in any one baseball season, he cleared more than $100,000 in his first year selling insurance. His business sense allowed him to retire very comfortably, although it was not impeccable. He once told the patriarch of the Marriott family that he should never consider expanding into the hotel business.

When he retired, Werber moved from Maryland to Naples, Fla. He spent 28 years there until poor health forced him to move to Charlotte, near daughter Pat. He has spent the past 10 years living in a retirement home here. His left leg was amputated below the knee when he was in his early 90s, a complication of his diabetes. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski phoned Werber during his recovery, a call he still treasures.

Werber's secret to longevity?

"I don't drink, I don't smoke, and I married a lovely girl who never got mad," Werber said.

Kathryn "Tat" Werber died in 2000, after she and Bill were married 70 years. They produced three children. Bill Jr., at age 77, still runs the family insurance business in Maryland. Pat, 73, lives in Charlotte. Susie Hill, the youngest daughter, is 60.

The whole family has major Duke connections, and all remain huge Duke fans, none more so than Bill Werber, who skips his normal 9 p.m. bedtime whenever the Blue Devils have a late basketball tipoff.

He doesn't watch baseball anymore, though. The pro game moves too slowly now, he believes, and he doesn't like the excess hair sported by players like Johnny Damon.

Much like my own grandparents, Werber is not politically correct all the time. He has strong opinions about the national anthem. He believes it should only be sung by men with powerful voices -- "no trilling," Werber declared -- and only to the roll of drums. He has written baseball commissioner Bud Selig about that and other matters, he said.

"He always responds," Werber said of Selig, "but he never says anything."

Werber, on the other hand, has lots to say. He's opinionated. He's mesmerizing. And he's 100 years old today, surrounded by folks who love him and still sleeping every night all the way through.

His is a life well-lived, one brushed by men like Ruth but ultimately painted by those much closer to him.

In his apartment, Werber displays zero pieces of baseball memorabilia, but the walls are covered with pictures of his family.