Bill Bergen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Bill Bergen | ||
|---|---|---|
| Catcher | ||
| Born: June 13, 1878 | ||
| Died: December 19, 1943 (aged 65) | ||
| Batted: Right | Threw: Right | |
| MLB debut | ||
| May 6, 1901 for the Cincinnati Reds |
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| Final game | ||
| September 20, 1911 for the Brooklyn Dodgers |
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| Career statistics | ||
| Batting average | .170 | |
| Home runs | 2 | |
| Runs batted in | 193 | |
| Teams | ||
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| Career highlights and awards | ||
William Aloysius "Bill" Bergen (1878-1943) was a Major League Baseball catcher in the early 20th century. Bill Bergen was born in North Brookfield, Massachusetts on June 13, 1878. He played eleven seasons in the National League, three with the Cincinnati Reds and eight with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Bergen's claim to fame is his complete inability to hit. The question of who was the worst hitter of all time is obviously a subjective one, but what is known is that no one played as long as Bill Bergen and hit so poorly. Bergen had 3,028 at-bats in his career, and in that time he compiled a batting average of .170, the all-time record low for players who compiled more than 2,500 at-bats. Davy Force is second-to-last with a career average of .211.[1] Bergen's career on-base percentage was .194 -- he is the only player with at least 500 at-bats with an OBP under .200. He had only two home runs. In 1909, Bergen hit .139, the lowest average ever for a player who qualified for the batting title. That season, he set another record for futility by going 46 at-bats in a row without a base hit, the longest streak ever by a position player (pitcher Bob Buhl went 88 at-bats without a hit).[2] From 1904 to 1911, Dodger pitchers as a group outhit Bergen, .169 to .162.[3]
Bergen was able to play for so long despite being such a terrible hitter by playing in an age where pitching dominated and by being a first-rate defensive catcher. Bergen ranks ninth on the all-time list for assists by a catcher with 1,444, despite never being a full-time player. In 1908, The Sporting News called him one of the best catchers in the game. His .989 fielding percentage in 1909 was a record (since broken) for a catcher.[4] On August 23, 1909, he threw out six St. Louis Cardinals on the basepaths, a record that still stands.[5] Charles Faber, in his book Baseball Ratings, called Bergen the third-best defensive catcher ever, behind Gabby Hartnett and Pop Snyder and ahead of Johnny Edwards and Roy Campanella. Total Baseball ranks Bergen the fifth-best defensive catcher of all-time.[6]
Another explanation was that most of the teams he played for weren't very good anyway: the Dodgers had a losing record every year Bergen was on the team, bottoming out with a 48-104 record in 1905.
After his terrible hitting finally cost him a job in the big leagues, Bergen played minor-league ball until 1914. He coached and managed in minor league ball until 1920 before retiring.[7] He died on December 19, 1943 of heart disease.
His brother was Marty Bergen, who played for the Boston Beaneaters as a catcher, and became infamous for killing his family and then himself.
[edit] See also
[edit] References and external links
- Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference
- Pepper, Al. Mendoza's Heroes: Fifty Batters Below .200.
- SABR biography
- Webpage dedicated to Bergen
