Edward P. Weidner Jr., who spent 52 years with the Baltimore Orioles, most of that time as the trainer who massaged, soothed and treated the players, died last night at his Towson home.
Mr. Weidner, who had celebrated his 92nd birthday July 15, died from complications of aging, his family said.
In a career that spanned five decades, he traveled some 750,000 miles by land, sea and air, ministering to the aches, pains and injuries -- both physical and psychological -- of thousands of players.
"He is the custodian of the little room known as 'Misery Hall,' where he has his rubbing table, baking lamps, tape, bandages, liniments and dozens of other items necessary to the care of the team's players and where their pains and aches are healed," said a 1941 article in The Evening Sun.
When he began his career as trainer in 1922, he carried his liniment, alcohol, iodine, gauze, tape and some aspirin in an orange crate; by the time he retired in 1967, his supplies filled an entire moving van.
Known as "Doc," Mr. Weidner (pronounced Wide-ner) had no formal medical training and attended school only through the sixth grade.
He was "born within a fungo fly" of old Oriole Park at Greenmount Avenue and 29th Street, said a 1960 article in The Sun.
"Dad started to cut school and became a truant and then was sent to St. Mary's Industrial School. They didn't fool around in those days," said Eddie Weidner III, his son, who lives in Burlington, N.C., "and while he was there he became friends with Babe Ruth."
"Babe Ruth was the best I ever saw," Mr. Weidner said in a 1955Evening Sun interview. "He could run, throw, and hit -- and what more could you ask for than a fellow like that?"
After working as an apprentice carpenter, he began hanging around Oriole Park in 1915 when Walter Fewster, then the trainer, asked if he wanted to handle the scoreboard one day.
"I said I'd try it and that was the easiest job in the world in those days. All you had to do was hang the numbers up on the board each inning, and most of them were zeros," he told The Sun in 1964, "because back then they didn't hit the long ball."
He then went to work in the clubhouse and after Fewster joined the Army during World War I, he started filling in as a trainer.
In 1923, he became trainer full time -- beginning a career that stretched from the days of legendary Oriole manager Jack Dunn to the days of Hank Bauer, who ran the team when Mr. Weidner retired in 1967.
Ralph Salvon, who joined him as assistant trainer in 1966 and became team trainer after Mr. Weidner's retirement, died in 1988.
Mr. Weidner was credited with several innovations in player treatment. "He used to soak cabbage leaves in 'Florida Water,' which is ammoniated water," said his son, "to help keep the players cool back in the days of woolen uniforms and hats. Some of the players even applied the leaves to their head and then put their hats on top.
"While on a Montreal road trip in 1922, he needed some ice and he couldn't find any. After looking around, he decided to us ethyl chloride rather than the ice to freeze a bruise and it became a mainstay of his army of weapons," said the son.
"He noticed that his players were getting an awful lot of blisters on their hands and suggested that they try using golfing gloves, which led to the development of the batting glove," Mr. Weidner said. "He also conducted experiments with batting helmets back in the 1930s and 1940s.
"He was very good at diagnosing problems, even though he had a little trouble with the Latin, which he always pronounced in a strictly Baltimorese fashion," the son said.
Mr. Weidner was known as a clubhouse philosopher and his wry observations -- not necessarily about baseball -- often broke up his listeners.
"He had an unconscious sense of humor that was filled with a lot of down-home colloquialisms," said Bob Brown, currently editor of the Oriole Gazette, who was formerly director of public relations for the Orioles.
"He'd say such things as, 'The tide comes in and the tide goes out and after that what do you have? Sand' or 'A frog falls off a log but you never hear of a log falling off a frog.' "
"The last time I saw Eddie was about 10 years ago when I was jogging on York Road," recalled John Steadman, Evening Sun sports columnist.
"He was a great walker and I said, 'Hey, Eddie, do you have the time?' He replied, 'I don't wear a watch. I'm retired.'
"A little-known fact is, that when Paul 'Bear' Bryant coached the Maryland football team back in 1945 for a year, Eddie went down there as trainer after the end of the baseball season.
"He was the hardest-working employee the Orioles ever had and made more money in retirement than the Orioles ever paid him, which is a tribute to the Major League Baseball Players Association," Mr. Steadman said.
Hall of Fame Orioles' broadcaster Chuck Thompson said, "I got to know him back in 1949 when I came here to work for the International League Orioles. I knew even then he was special. He was always even-tempered and never got angry.
"I remember him during spring training in Florida saying to a player who just had hit a home run, 'Yeah, that's great, but you're still 1,100 miles from Baltimore.' "
"He learned how to be a trainer by picking it up as he went along. He was very serious and hard-working and he also worked as equipment manager when we were on the road," said Mr. Brown.
"The players loved him, especially the older guys who never forgot Eddie, guys like Jim Gentile, Gene Woodling and 'Skinny' Brown."
Another player who came to rely upon Mr. Weidner was Jim Palmer.
"He was a man whose demeanor never changed," said Mr. Palmer, who got to know Mr. Weidner when he joined the Orioles in 1965 as a 19-year-old rookie.
"I didn't know anything about taking care of myself and he instructed me in how to do that. He was a true professional and it was great having such a caring guy like Eddie in the training room."
"He was the first trainer I had," said Brooks Robinson, "and I couldn't get over the fact he had been there that long. If anybody has seen Oriole baseball, he did. He was a wonderful gentleman, one of my favorite people."
"After he retired he stayed away from Memorial Stadium," said his son. "He didn't want to be a pest and get in anybody's way. He lived and breathed the Orioles and kept up with them through the newspapers and TV."
Mr. Weidner, who made his home for many years on St. Dunstans Road in Govans and later in Stoneleigh, enjoyed woodworking in his leisure time.
He never learned how to drive a car and either walked or traveled by streetcar and bus and often would walk to work at Memorial Stadium.
"Up until fairly recently, he would walk five or six miles a day and would often go to Sheppard Pratt where he'd hang around the carpentry shop. Sometimes he'd walk to Stebbins Anderson in the Kenilworth Mall to buy some hardware. He was the kind of guy who if he saw loose nails would foam at the mouth," said the son.
"I was lucky to have that guy for a father -- he was so modest and kind almost to the point of embarrassment."
He was married in 1925 to the former Margaret Speer, who died in 1983.
Services are planned for tomorrow and Friday at the Ruck Towson Funeral Home, 1050 York Road. A Mass will be offered Saturday at Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church, at Baltimore and Ware avenues in Towson, with burial at Moreland Park Cemetery, 2901 Taylor Ave. Times for the services were not known last night.
Surviving, in addition to the son, are two daughters, Evelyn Weidner and Joan W. Kirby, both of Stoneleigh; 11 grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.
Memorial donations may be made to Our Daily Bread, 19 W. Franklin St., Baltimore 21201.