Berkenstock Comes Back
On October 30, 1871, the Athletics 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: center fielder Count Sensenderfer had injured his knee, so they called on Berkenstock -- by now a 40-year-old out of the game for five years -- to play right field, while right fielder George Bechtel moved to center. 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 known 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.
Little else is known of Berkenstock's life; a SABR report indicates he served in the American Civil War, enlisting in 1862 and mustering out after two weeks. He died in Philadelphia on February 23, 1900.
Read more about this topic: Nate Berkenstock