'Tweety' Reichert remembered as mentor, key figure in saving minor league baseball in Erie

Erie’s baseball community recently lost one of its most colorful figures.

And one of its most important.

Ted “Tweety” Reichert, who once was up for consideration to be a Major League Baseball umpire, died Oct. 26 at age 82. The Strong Vincent High School graduate and U.S. Navy veteran died months after his enshrinement in the Pennsylvania American Legion Sports Hall of Fame.

Whenever local organized baseball games were held, be it the Erie SeaWolves at UPMC Park, the Glenwood League at Ainsworth Field or at the college or high school levels, there was a decent chance Reichert was a spectator.

If he was, the odds were greater a cigar was in his possession.

“For the last 10 or 12 years, Teddy couldn’t drive or was told it was best if he didn’t,” John DeLuca said. “He’d call my brother and I, or one of his neighbors, and ask if we’d come and help him run errands or maybe (take him) to the hospital to see a friend.”

“Or we’d take him to the cigar store. He’d come out of there with three boxes for $50.”

John and Jerry DeLuca were among the pallbearers for Reichert’s Oct. 30 funeral Mass at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, 1626 W. 26th St.

They, like the others, were current or former baseball umpires who decades ago turned that thankless role into a side career because of Reichert’s mentorship.

A different kind of save

More influential, though, was Reichert’s role in helping Erie maintain its status as a minor league baseball town.

Although Ainsworth had been the home to New York-Penn League teams since 1981, MLB officials determined just over a decade later that its field and facilities no longer met their updated standards to host one of its sanctioned minor league franchises.

Erie had little choice but to construct a new stadium if it still wanted one in northwestern Pennsylvania.

Team Erie, the name for a group of local baseball fans who lobbied for such a project, had Reichert as a member.

“Ted helped in the background to get the funding,” DeLuca said. “As local president of the (American) Postal Workers Union, he had a black book (of phone numbers) he must have compiled for over 20 years. When he was (vice president) for the state union, he contacted all the senators and representatives.”

“That helped open the door for (building the) new stadium.”

Groundbreaking for Jerry Uht Park, now known as UPMC Park, took place on July 27, 1994. The 6,000-seat downtown stadium opened the following summer.

Nearly 30 years later, the Double-A Erie SeaWolves became Eastern League champions at that same facility.

More: Erie SeaWolves sweep Binghamton Rumble Ponies for Eastern League championship

‘Listening to Teddy was great’

While Reichert never made a call in a Major League Baseball game, he stayed in touch with some umpires who did.

John Pulli, John McSherry and Eric Gregg, according to DeLuca, were some of the notable men in blue who were in the same class of the umpire academy that Reichert attended.

DeLuca relished the chance to meet some of them when he tagged along with Reichert to games in Cleveland.

“We’d meet some of the umpires at one of the downtown hotels prior to a game,” he said. “After the game, we’d meet up again at a restaurant. I could sit and listen to them talk for hours.

“Listening to Teddy was great.”

The DeLuca brothers, plus Fairview baseball coach Joe Spinelli, were responsible for creating the Ted Reichert Baseball Scholarship. It benefits a member of Mercyhurst University’s successful NCAA Division II program.

Kloecker Funeral Home and Crematory Inc., 2502 Sassafras St., handled arrangements for Reichert, who was preceded in death by his parents, three sisters and two brothers.

Survivors include his wife, Carol Fisher Reichert; a son, David Reichert; a daughter, Julianne Esposito and her husband, Mike; two brothers, Bob and Don Reichert; and a grandson, Grayson Esposito.

Reichert was buried with military honors at Gate of Heaven Cemetery.

Memorials can be made in care of the Ted Reichert Baseball Scholarship at Mercyhurst University, 501 E. 38th St., Erie, PA 16546.

Contact Mike Copper at mcopper@timesnews.com. Follow him on X @ETNcopper.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Erie baseball personality Ted 'Tweety' Reichert dies at age 82