Bert Thiel, One Of Two Remaining Boston Braves, Dies At 94

Bert Thiel was a survivor. The former Boston Braves pitcher only pitched in four major leagues games, but he outlasted nearly every member of Boston’s former baseball franchise. Thiel died July 31, 2020, surrounded by his family at his Pella, Wisconsin home. He was 94.

Thiel signed with the Braves in 1947 after serving in World War II and immediately impacted their farm system. He won 20 games with the Class-B Jackson Senators in 1948. Trained as a starter, he pushed his way through a deep Boston farm system to create an opportunity with the Braves in 1952. He quickly discovered he was in for a huge adjustment in the major leagues.

“I had a heck of a spring training in 1952,” Thiel said in a phone interview. “It’s a funny thing about baseball; I’ve always been a starter, and a winning starter. When they take you up to the big leagues, they say, ‘Well, put him in the bullpen.’ You have to get accustomed to being a bullpen guy. You have to be able to throw every day. As a starter you have to pace yourself, every fourth day and you know what’s going on.”

He made his debut April 17, 1952, against the dangerous Brooklyn Dodgers lineup. Pitching in relief, Thiel faced a lineup that included Hall of Famers Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Duke Snider, and Pee Wee Reese.

“I was upset that I gave up two runs with two outs. But I’ll never forget that day,” Thiel told the Boston Globe in April 2020. “It was a dream come true to pitch in the majors. It was what I wanted my whole life from when I was playing baseball with my father.”

Thiel never had the opportunity to truly savor big league life, as two weeks later he was dispatched to the minor leagues. He felt he was given insufficient time to make the transition from starter to reliever with the Braves.

“You have a lot of things to overcome, and you have to be lucky,” he said. “If they started me one game and did a good job, I probably would have been a starter. It was rough to make that change at the major league level.”

His short stay came in an era when major league teams were able to carry a larger roster for the first 30 days before cutting down their roster to 25 players. He explained how the Braves decided to keep Lew Burdette over him in their bullpen.

“I ended up 1-1 after a terrific spring training, and they sent Billy Reed and I out the same day,” he said. “When we came into Chicago, they thought that was the closest place to home. That was the way it was. I won in relief against Philadelphia, and I lost in relief against [Brooklyn].

“They said it was between Lew Burdette and I to go back to Milwaukee. They just made a trade to get Lew Burdette from the Yankees for Johnny Sain, and back then you had options. According to the numbers, I was designated to go. Burdette turned out to be a whirlwind, didn’t he?”

He pitched in the minor leagues until 1961, winning 145 games in the process, including playing two seasons in the Puerto Rican Winter League with Caguas. It was there he encountered many aging Negro League stars who he felt had the talent but were on the second half of their careers.

“These ballplayers like Willard Brown, they were at the end of their line at their age,” he said. “They were good hitters. It’s a shame that a lot of them didn’t get a chance to get into organized ball or the major leagues.”

Thiel stayed connected to the game as a minor league manager and scout, spending 28 years working in professional baseball. One of his sons, Kevin, played three minor league season. After retiring, he owned and operated a bar, “Bert’s 10th Inning” in Marion, Wisconsin.

With Thiel’s death, former Braves catcher Del Crandall is currently the only living Boston Brave. Looking back over his career, he felt strongly if he came up in the current era of free agency and expansion, his major league career would have been longer.

“We had 13-14 minor league clubs at that time,” he said. “It’s a lot easier now, there are less levels. A lot of MLB players that could have been, just stayed there [in the minors] until their career was over. The thing about it then was, you were controlled by the major league clubs; you were theirs until they traded you. Now you have four years, and you are eligible for anyone. We didn’t have that privilege back then.”

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