Tiger Baseball, Recalling Reno Bertoia

By Bill Gay

Reno Bertoia was the best baseball player this area has ever produced. Born in Italy, he came to Windsor with his parents and was just 10 years old when the Detroit Tigers won the American League pennant and the World Series in 1945.

I'm sure when the youngster sat listening to his heroes on WKMH Radio he never dreamed he would be one of them, and not in the too distant future.

Under the tutelage of Windsor's best known hitting coach, Father Ronald Cullen, Reno started to draw attention of the scouts. From Stodgell Park to the Detroit sandlots and finally to Briggs Stadium, Windsor's Reno Bertoia was heard from. Bertoia faced the immortal Satchell Paige in his first big league at bat, September 22, 1953.

Old Satch, who had pitched for years in the Negro Leagues, didn't get his start in the bigs until near the end of a long career. Still it was enough to strike Reno out on three pitches.

But Reno Bertoia from the Hickory Road neighbourhood on the city's east side was on his way and made the Tiger roster in 1954 and joined Al Kaline (his roommate in those early days) as the brightest stars of the teams position players.

In 1957, I never missed a day looking at the statistics in the newspaper as Bertoia duelled the immortal Boston slugger Ted Williams for the American league lead in hitting. One day it was Bertoia up top, the next day Teddy Ballgame. Back and forth. A dream season ended with the Tiger third baseman finishing with a .275 batting average and a .383 slugging percentage. Williams had put the title away by the All Star break but it was still a remarkable achievement for the young man.

In 10 big league seasons he played for the Tigers, Washington Senators (he was an original Twin when the club moved there), Kansas City A's, back to Detroit, and then a final, brief fling playing ball in Japan. He asked for his release a few weeks into the season because his son had been ill for most of the family's stay in the far east.

Bertoia later scouted for both the Blue Jays and Tigers and I remember him and Harvey Teno attending a reception the radio station put on for the Jays coaches and players at the Renaissance Centre Hotel in the early eighties. It was that weekend Jerry Howarth called his first Blue Jay games on radio, a job he still holds.

But what Reno Bertoia achieved in his life was just beginning. He taught history for 30 years at several schools, but I think he'll be particularly remembered for his days at Assumption. Reno was always critical of his own performance, and strove for perfection sometimes a little too much. But those students he influenced so much over so long, learned the value of team play. He taught them that team play didn't just apply to the baseball diamond but to all aspects of life. In an age that paid more and more attention to the "me generation", Bertoia's teaching was a wonderful benefit to his History students. Many times he would put aside the lesson as mandated by the course, to teach other values, ones that would remain with his students for a lifetime.

Over the years, I used to meet him at the Windsor-Essex Sports Hall of Fame Dinner. He always tried to have a few words with the people winning recognition (he joined the hall himself in 1982), especially if he knew they were coping with health problems. One day I was waiting at a reception area at HUB Insurance, when a familiar voice greeted me. I asked Reno how our mutual friend, hockey great Joe Klukay was. I had seen Klukay at the Hall of Fame dinner a few months before. Reno reported he was doing better. However the Duke of Padocah passed away a few months later. He was another of my heroes playing for Toronto and Boston, but in particular the Windsor Bulldogs in the early 60's.  To read more go to www.leamingtonpostandshopper.com.