Hank Leiber obituary

Hank Leiber, a prominent Tucson businessman and a noted University of Arizona athlete who went on to a star-crossed major league baseball career, died yesterday. He was 82 and had been hospitalized for seven weeks.

Leiber's promising baseball career was cut short by serious injuries, suffered when he was hit in the head twice. He played for the New York Giants and the Chicago Cubs and was named to the National League All Star team three times. While playing for the Giants he batted .364 in the 1937 World Series.

When he retired from baseball following the 1942 season, Leiber got into real estate full time.

He had dabbled in real estate before. During his playing days, he sent part of every paycheck home to his father, who invested the money for him in Phoenix-area farm land.

"When he finished his career as a ballplayer, he held onto the land and it became quite valuable," said Roy Drachman, a longtime Tucson real estate investor and a contemporary of Leiber's.

"Hank was a pretty smart businessman, smart and conservative. He had a vision for the future. He bought land and saw it increase in value," Drachman said.

Leiber worked for James C. Grant Realty in the 1940s and opened his own firm, Leiber and McCarthy, in the late 1950s.

He was one of the developers of the Oro Valley Country Club. He also helped develop 49er Country Club and owned and operated the 49er Guest Ranch until it closed in the early 1960s.

He was active in numerous clubs and organizations. He held memberships at the Tucson, Oro Valley and 49er country clubs, the Mountain Oyster Club and The University of Arizona Presidents Club. He was a charter member of the Tucson Conquistadores and was a founding member of the Tucson Big Brothers. He is enshrined in the Arizona Baseball and College Coaches halls of fame.

He was a scratch golfer, winner of the 1950 club championship at Tucson Country Club, and an avid outdoorsman.

Henry Edward Leiber was born in Phoenix on Jan. 17, 1911. He starred in baseball, football and basketball at Phoenix Union High School, where he won All-State laurels as a center in basketball. At Arizona, where he lettered in football, basketball and baseball, he earned All-Southwestern honors for his play at fullback during his last two years of college, 1930-31. His UA coaches included Pop McKale and Fred Enke.

But he was most talented at baseball. He pitched, played first base and outfield for McKale." Hank was a big guy, maybe 220 pounds," recalled Hal Warnock, a veteran Tucson lawyer who was a year behind Leiber at Arizona. Warnock also played for McKale and played briefly in the major leagues for the St. Louis Browns.

"Hank was a right-handed pull hitter. He liked to hit line drives about a foot off the ground, right down the (third base) line. I got hurt every time he hit a line drive - they'd bounce off my chin or my chest," recalled Warnock.

Leiber, who had been playing semi-pro baseball before he enrolled at the UA, had been offered a contract by John J. McGraw, a Hall of Fame manager for the New York Giants. Leiber was 17 at the time, not old enough to sign. His father made him promise to finish his education before he would sign for him.

Leiber, who originally planned to become a dentist, left the UA 12 credit hours short of his degree.

In the spring of 1932, Leiber showed up at the Giants' spring training camp on Catalina, just off the coast from Long Beach, Calif. Although Leiber was impressive, McGraw decided he needed seasoning and sent him to Winston-Salem, N.C., in the Piedmont League.

"Getting sent down shocked me," Leiber said in a 1993 interview. "McGraw said, 'Son, you're not quite ready, but you've got a hell of a future.'"

After posting an awesome .427 batting average at Nashville, Leiber was called up by the Giants at the end of the 1933 season.

He blossomed in 1935, his first full season in the majors, hitting .331 with 22 home runs and 107 runs batted in. He tailed off a little the next season, although still hitting a respectable .271, and played in the 1936 World Series.

But disaster struck at a spring training game at New Orleans' Pelican Stadium on April 4, 1937. Leiber, an aggressive, plate-crowding hitter, was beaned by 18-year-old Cleveland rookie Bob Feller, whose wildness was coupled with the speed of a young Nolan Ryan.

"Feller said he hit me with a curve," said Leiber. "He was one of the fastest guys in baseball, probably one of the first to throw faster than 100 mph. And he was wild. The Indians wouldn't take batting practice with him pitching. They said he didn't know where the ball was going."

Feller recalled the incident and Leiber in a telephone interview at his Cleveland home:

"It was a curveball that broke down. He thought it was a fastball and ducked under it. And those were the days before helmets. I went to see him in the hospital in New York. That was just a very unfortunate accident."

Asked if throwing that pitch bothered him, Feller replied, "It didn't affect me at all. If it had been a fastball, it would have been different."

Assessing Leiber as a player, Feller said: "He was a fair outfielder, although he was slow. But he had a lot of power, very dangerous, and was a strong, good-looking guy. The Hall of Fame should be considering him."

Leiber missed nearly all of the 1937 season, although he did make it back for the World Series, where he hit .364 against Joe McCarthy's New York Yankees. The Yankees won the Series 4 games to 1, their second straight Series victory over player-manager Bill Terry's Giants.

Leiber was still suffering the effects of the beaning in 1938 and the Giants sent him, Gus Mancuso and Dick Bartell to the Chicago Cubs in exchange for Frank Demaree, Billy Jurges and Ken O'Dea.

Leiber had big years with the Cubs in 1939 and '40, hitting a total of 41 home runs in those two seasons. In one 1939 game, he hit three consecutive home runs and missed a fourth by a couple of feet.

His recovery apparently complete, Leiber was named to the NL All-Star team in 1939, '40 and '41.

But on June 24, 1941, Leiber was hit in the head again in what proved to be his career-ending beaning.

Leiber recalled it for a Star reporter:

"Cliff Melton, a left-hander for the Giants, hit me in the head at Wrigley Field. Back then, the center field bleachers at Wrigley Field were a real problem for hitters, particularly against left-handers (because of the difficult background provided by the fans' white shirts). Babe Pinelli, the home-plate umpire, later told me, 'I thought you were dead. Your eyes were rolling around.'"

Leiber's hitting style had caught up with him. Even after the Feller beaning, "I never backed away. That was the reason I got hit. I was always digging in," said Leiber.

Leiber was dealt back to the Giants in 1942, a mere shadow of the player he had been. He was through at 31.

"I was really just in my prime. ... I could have been up there with the (all-time) hot shots," said Leiber, who finished with a lifetime batting average of .288 and hit 101 home runs.

Leiber had one last fling with baseball. He, along with Roy and Oliver Drachman and Hi Corbett, bought the Tucson Cowboys of the Arizona Texas League in the late 1940s. Leiber served as manager of the team and pinch-hit a few times, Roy Drachman said.

Leiber's wife, Elizabeth C. Procter Leiber, died in 1978. He is survived by two sons, Henry E. Leiber Jr., a rancher in Thompson Falls, Mont., and John Lee Leiber, a Tucson attorney; his brother, William F. Leiber, of Phoenix; and six grandchildren, one of whom, Zane Leiber, is a pitcher in the Chicago White Sox farm system.

Arrangements are pending.