Reader links Manchester hardware store with former baseball slugger Vic Wertz
The name of Shues Self Service Hardware Store in York County’s Manchester borough lives on via this matchbook available on eBay. Also of interest: Reader looking for info on Manchester’s long-closed Rentzel’s Farm Implements and Trolley ran both ways between Manchester and Mount Wolf and Wolf Man. Wolfchester. No, the Village of Mount Wolf and Polio survivor and York, Pa.’s own Vic Wertz: ‘The man who hit the ball Mays caught’.
Larry Good has supplied a bit more information about the late Vic Wertz, slugger for the Cleveland Indians in the 1950s, and a former York County resident.
He pointed out that Paul Wertz, Vic’s father, was store manager of Shue’s Manchester borough hardware store.
The reminder was a matchbook for Shues Self Service Hardware Store on eBay.
Larry e-mailed:
“Talked to Paul daily, I was In the store everyday for a soda or for something for my mother. Don’t remember ever meeting Vic.”
He speculated that baseball kept Vic away.
The Wertzes living quarters were built into the store.
Vic Wertz is widely remembered for hitting the long fly ball that Willie Mays ran down in “The Catch,” propelling Mays’ New York Giants to the World Series title in 1954.
Relatively little is known about Vic Wertz’s time in York County.
Post-baseball, he lived in Detroit and died in the early 1980s.
For other memories about Vic Wertz, visit this thread on The Exchange.
