Nate Berkenstock
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Nate Berkenstock | ||
|---|---|---|
| Outfielder | ||
| Born: 1831 | ||
| Died: February 23, 1900 (aged 69) | ||
| Batted: Unknown | Threw: Unknown | |
| MLB debut | ||
| October 30, 1871 for the Philadelphia Athletics |
||
| Final game | ||
| October 30, 1871 for the Philadelphia Athletics |
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| Career statistics | ||
| Average | .000 | |
| Home runs | 0 | |
| RBI | 0 | |
| Teams | ||
| Philadelphia Athletics | ||
| Career highlights and awards | ||
| First-born MLB player | ||
Nathan "Nate" Berkenstock (born in 1831 in Pennsylvania) was the earliest-born professional baseball player. Harry Wright, a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame and long thought to be the "oldest" player ever, was in fact the next born, in 1835. Berkenstock played in just one pro league game: the game that decided the first professional baseball championship in the United States, in 1871.
[edit] Baseball career
On October 30, 1871, the Philadelphia Athletics (the original team of this name, and not related to the American League team that now plays in Oakland) met the Chicago White Stockings at the Union Grounds in Brooklyn, to decide the 1871 championship. In the first season of America's first professional league, the National Association, the title was decided not by winning percentage but simply wins; going into the final game, the Athletics had 20 victories (as did the Boston Red Stockings) while Chicago had 19; the "Championship Committee" decreed before the contest that the winner would take the pennant.
The fact that the White Stockings were playing at all was significant: the Great Chicago Fire had earlier that month wiped out their ballpark and all their equipment, forcing them to play their remaining games on the road, wearing makeshift and borrowed uniforms. The Athletics also had problems: injuries had left them without a right fielder, so they called on Berkenstock, a 40-year-old retired amateur player. (Exactly when Berkenstock first took up the game is unknown; The National Association of Base Ball Players, the first organized amateur league, wasn't even founded until 1857, when he was twenty-six.) Philadelphia won the game, and the championship, by a 4-1 count. (The White Stockings' defeat would foreshadow decades of frustration for the franchise that still plays today, as the Chicago Cubs.) Berkenstock failed to get a hit in four trips to the plate (striking out three times), but recorded three putouts in the field, including the final out of the game.
Berkenstock died in Philadelphia on February 23, 1900.
[edit] Sources
- Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference
