Crime in Sports - #430 - The Lizzie Borden Of Baseball - Martin Bergen

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

This week, we check out an old timey baseball player, who completely lost his mind, during his playing days. One of the best catchers of his time, renowned for his baseball ability, but feared for his unstable, and insane behavior. He fought teammates, chased small children, who were fans of the other team, and generally crazied himself out of baseball, until his final, unbelievably violent series of acts, that has him compared to Lizzie Borden!Grow up wanting to play that "new" sport, baseball, believe that your teammates are actually plotting to kill you, and end it all with one final slaughter, that will leave you as infamous, for the next hundred years with Martin Bergen!!Check us out, every Tuesday!We will continue to bring you the biggest idiots in sports history!! Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman Donate at... patreon.com/crimeinsports or with paypal.com using our email: [e-mail] Get all the CIS & STM merch at crimeinsports.threadless.com Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things CIS & STM!!  Contact us on... twitter.com/crimeinsports [e-mail] facebook.com/Crimeinsports instagram.com/smalltownmurderSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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They will be very fun. Yeah, we're going to do that. Yeah, we got a whole bunch of stuff. They're going to be shocked. They're going to be shocked. It's going to be hilarious. They're going to be shocked. It's going to be hilarious. What happened? It's going to be fucking hilarious. Can't wait.

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Don't you worry about that. That said, let's get to it with our asshole of the week. And this guy is, wow, I've never heard of him at all before this and neither had Ian and you've probably never heard of him. Marty Bergen, Martin Bergen. Yeah, he's a classic. Yeah, Martin Bergen, his, he's a classic. Yeah

Martin Bergen his name is BRG EN don't know his last or his middle name. He's born in October 25th 1871 Yeah old Timie a little bit here. He's from North Brookfield, Massachusetts And that is where he will kind of stay too because he'll he'll be there for the duration pretty much except for when he's playing ball here he's a baseball player we'll talk about his parents are Michael and Anne which doesn't sound too old-timey there's no Hezekiah or anything in there so that's good he's got five siblings one brother four sisters that's how he grows up here

and he's born in Massachusetts like we said. They were I guess both his parents Michael and Anne were born in Ireland and immigrated to the United States in 1865 so six years before he was born. Set up shop in Massachusetts where all the Irish do. That's it. They had it down. They were like listen this is the spot. They. So we put a Dunkin over there? All right, Dunkin? We're gonna put a Dunkin on this corner, all right? Everybody okay with that?

Good. You want jelly, Phil? Let's go. Irish up that coffee for me, little sweetheart. You know what I mean? So they came at the end of the Civil War. They were like, well, they're stopped shooting at each other, so I guess that's a good time to go.

Let's calm down. The dad supported the family working in a shoe factory, and Martin was the third child of six. So he's right there in the middle, he's the first son born. He's got a brother Bill, who is the William Bill, they call him, he's the sixth child, he's the only other boy, and Bill ended up also

being a ball player as we'll talk about. Is that right? Both of them are catchers they're both catchers. Billy Bergen. Marty's a catcher Billy's a catcher they're both catchers. When Martin was a teenager, just think about he's born in 1871 this is around the time when professional baseball is getting its just coming to be, just coming to be, you know what I mean? It doesn't become popular till the 1880s. It becomes like a popular sport.

So that's right when he was in his prime. So he's born in 1871. That's unbelievable. By the time he's 12, it's like the most popular new game and everybody loves it. So all the kids are playing it and became a big deal. The OK Corral shootout happened. This is unbelievable.

That's fucking crazy, isn't it? To think about this is while this is happening, he's reading current day newspaper accounts of cowboys fighting in the old west, having shootouts and shit. Read about it. Jesse James escaping from jail and shit. That's unbelievable. That's what he's reading as a kid in newspapers. So baseball's just coming into prominence here.

Cap Anson of the White Sox is like the big star of everything at that point. And Martin and his younger brother, that's all they did was play baseball. That's it. That's all they were into. Billy's a good fielder as well. Billy, his brother played 11 years in the majors.

Is that right? Yeah, he has a longer career than Martin does by far. Yeah, he played 11 years in the majors for Brooklyn most of the time. And the funniest thing is his older brother has the has a record actually in baseball, a hitting record. Oh, not exactly. Not exactly an achievement, but a record nonetheless. Memorable. For any player with more than 3,000 total at bats, which is a good amount if you figure 600 a season for a whole season, so it's a bunch of years, you know what I mean? So anybody's 3,000 at bats, he has the lowest lifetime batting average of anybody with more

than 3,000 at bats. He's the worst baseball player ever. The worst hitter who's ever played the game. Literally, his brother is. You know what his lifetime batting average was? 019. Well, no, he actually played a position, but 170, which is not even close to.

You can't do that. Not even 210. Not even 200. I mean, that's, fuck the Mendoza line. This is the Bergen line of 170. That is horrible. But that tells you, imagine how great of a catcher he must have been if he stayed in the majors for 11 years, hitting 170. He's an automatic out and they still let him play. So back then you'd have the pitcher hitting behind him. So eight and nine are two outs, which is wild. So he must have been an amazing catcher

and both the Bergen brothers were considered to be as good of defensive catchers that existed in the time. Is that right? They were great defensive catchers, which I guess that's a big deal too, especially back then if there's, if base stealing is a big deal, a guy who can throw out a base guess that's a big deal too, especially back then if there's, if base stealing is a big deal,

a guy who can throw out a base stealer is a big deal. That's really all the pitcher, or the catcher's gotta do, right? Is just have a cannon for an arm to get. He's gotta call the game too, that's the other thing. So, okay, well not now, now they call it from the bench, but up until 15 years ago, the catcher called the fucking game.

So I mean, if you got a no hitter or a perfect game, the catcher should get just as much credit because he's the one calling the pitches. So. Yeah, he's telling you what to throw. And a good catcher, a pitcher listens to him. They understand. So Marty grows up, like we said, in North Brookfield,

which is in Worcester County. It's about 75 miles from Boston. Yeah, it's just out there on the west side. Yeah, he played for the Brookfields, which is a local independent team, which back then every town had three baseball teams back then. It was the most popular thing in the world. So one of his teammates, who is also from North Brookfield, is Connie Mack, who is the very famous, he was the owner of the A's,

he was a ball player before that, manager, they had Connie Mack field, I mean he's a legend, one of the, pre-1950 he's one of like the top 10 legends of baseball is Connie Mack. So he grew up with Connie Mack playing ball with him for an independent. Yeah, so they become friends here. And Connie Mack will stay with him till the bitter end

as we'll talk about treating him. He must have liked him somehow, because not a lot of people like Marty, as we'll talk about now. There must be something with baseball that there's a certain person in baseball that that's what they, because there must be something inside baseball players

because they will take a piece of shit that's a drain on everybody and just take care of them till the very end. They do it all the time. It happens a lot. I mean, Ty Cobb took care of his shit teammates who couldn't stop drinking.

Somebody's taking care of Lenny Dykstra right now. Yes, if you're famous enough. Someone is like, yeah, you think Lenny Dykstra's making appointments for himself? Absolutely not. No, I wouldn't trust him to drive anywhere. I wouldn't even trust him to keep his teeth in his fucking mouth. Are you kidding me?

He can't. He couldn't even take care of his own teeth for god's sake. He's a disaster. So his own fake teeth. Yeah. And those. And those. He's had two sets of teeth.

He can't keep track of any of them. Listen, whatever. Your teeth get fucked up, that's fine. But if you're fucking then get new teeth and just leave them at a Jersey Mike's, I gotta lose all respect for you at that point. It's very hard to care, Lenny. Fucking A, man. So yeah, even as a teenager, Marty showed a lot.

He's got mental problems, Marty. That's his main issue. And baseball has been the receptacle for crazy people for a long time. You couldn't be an eccentric weirdo. And if you're a good enough ball player, they don't give a shit. Oh, you'll stick around. It's, I mean, think about it. Look up Rue Baudel and all the crazy shit he would do. He would leave the game in the middle of an inning and go into the stands and play with

puppies. That's what he was fucking crazy. Literally. He would do that. He'd hear a fire engine and leave. He'd run off the field and go chase the fire engine like a fucking dog. He's a weirdo, but that's pitchers have always been considered. Especially pitchers can be weird because they're yeah. Pitchers are considered kind of artists a little bit like from bull Durham. They talk about that too, but there can be, you can be off. And especially a relief pitcher,

you can be crazy. They can go, he's crazier than a shit house rat, but boy, we bring him in the night, and he blows them away. They don't give a fuck if you're a relief. They stick you out in the bull, you don't even hang out in the dugout. You're in another, they don't even give a shit about you.

They don't care, you can be a nut in the bullpen, and they don't care. Catchers are usually the opposite. They're usually the most stable guy on the team. Catchers usually become managers. Look at all the managers. Half of them are catchers. That's all your joe Tories and all those guys.

They're all fucking catchers. Catchers become managers. It's very common thing. So they usually are stable. They're usually the guys calling the game. So they have to have a lot of, you know, all that shit. Yeah, Johnny Bench seemed like he probably had lot of, you know, all that shit. Yeah, Johnny Bench seemed like he probably had his shit together.

Yeah, all catchers usually do. They have conversations with the guys. They have to talk to the umpire, so they have to be very... Oh, yeah. It's like the sober guy at the party. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. He talks to the cops.

Yup. He asked the umpquest, if a ball misses, he'll go, is that outside? Where was that? So the pitcher doesn't have to look like an asshole. So a good catcher. And so he knows where to keep that ball. Exactly. Right.

And then the catcher will go, listen, he's calling here, he's calling here, he said that. He's being a dick, we get it. But you have to know where his strike zone is today. So he showed a lot of, even as a teenager though, anxiety, stress, very moody he'd be as a teenager, which sounds like a teenager, honestly, nowadays. But back then that wasn't what teenagers were like.

They were, no. Teenagers didn't have anxiety until fucking 20 years ago. I mean, we had anxiety, but it wasn't like overwhelming our beings. Well, I'm sure they did, but they weren't allowed to show it to get punched in the face for it.'m sure they did, but they weren't allowed to show it. No. To get punched in the face for it.

No, they did a lot of that too, but they do a lot of scientific experiments. Kids were happy until 2013, and then they got miserable. They did a 40-year study of this whole thing. As soon as kids got Instagram on their phone, this is what happened. All of this shit now, It's that's what it is It's literally they said you can trace it to the day kids got Instagram on their phone And then they amazing ass and yet since you shaking them exponentially shot up my life sucks look at her. I'm hideous But back then garbage there was no fucking there was no pressure

Yeah, you know what I mean? These kids didn't have any pressure They didn't have anything they had nobody look at I didn't I mean I knew I certainly knew I was not Yeah fucking captain of the football team hot, but I didn't give a shit either. That's the other thing Yeah, these people they had nobody to compare themselves to yeah, I mean, I thought I looked you have a sketch in a newspaper Yeah, I thought everything was fine, but until- So did I, everybody did. Yeah. I thought I looked exactly like all the people on MTV.

Yeah, who knows? Yeah. But then when you didn't have to compete on the same plane as them, kids now, they're on Instagram or Twitter or whatever, and you're on the same plane as these people. And you're thinking you're competition, and you're all doing this

It's not the same. It's more than that too. Cuz then you can see what you post You can see what they post it looks the same to you But then there's little little buttons on the bottom that tells you how you're not the same. That's the same Millions of people like that. Nobody likes this kids used to look at like a magazine and see people and be like, oh wow But they didn't think like oh I have to compete with these people. We're not in this, I'm not in this magazine too next to this person. And you didn't think that you were anywhere

near that person anyway because their name is, everybody knows that person. Exactly. Nobody knows Tabatha Fielder or whatever. I don't know if there's, that's just a name I get. I guess. But no, now if you're in school, you have to deal with not only the anxiety of school

and like social pressures there, but then you get off of school and it's still there. It's all fucking night on the goddamn, on social media too, so it's brutal. It's fucking brutal. It's right there when you sit down to take a shit. It's right there to tell you you're a piece of shit too. Just blush yourself.

He would, when he's a teenager, he would be real moody, he would pout.out and if he felt if he felt the crowd wasn't Really like applauding him enough. Yeah, he would just leave the game. He would leave He get angry and sullen and walk out Well, which I've never heard in baseball before that's yeah. Yeah, you're supposed to tune the crowd out. What do you care? They need you bud. Well, it's about scoring and runs and you know crowds really irrelevant in this in the whole thing. I mean if you score enough, they'll certainly cheer. Yeah, he in his in 1891, which is his first professional season and with a minor league team

He got in a brutal fistfight with one of his teammates and almost got kicked off the team for that. He fights with his teammates a lot, like people don't like him. Everywhere he went, this article says everywhere Bergen went, trouble followed. It's a good way to put it. He began minor league baseball in 1891 and then into 1892. He hit 247 that year, but he got into a beef with a teammate over what the sporting news described as an imaginary grievance of Bergens. What is that? He just made some shit up. He gave and thought the guy was doing something to him that he wasn't doing and quote gave the other player a bad beating.

So wallop some other players. Yeah, I guess in the locker room. I don't know what, in the clubhouse. He then fought with two other teammates over the course of that year for, again, imagined infractions against him. Wow. No, everyone was like, what the fuck are you talking about? And he would just freak out. So he is an odd duck from the very beginning here.

As the regular season, after the regular season, he would rejoin the Brookfields in the fall, even after he played a pro season. He just liked it there. So in 1892, a lady named Harriet, who goes by Hattie, Hattie Gaines moved to North Brookfield from New York State after she got a job at a mill. Yeah, going for that big mill work there. She met Marty Bergen and they got married on July 11th, 1893. They purchased a small farm called Snowball Farm and they had three children.

Number one, Martin, of course, of even back then. It's 1895 for Christ's sake and they're already starting it with fucking this all up. Yeah. You're sealing your fate Marty, you're fucking it all up for everybody. He's one of the first. He's born in 1894, Florence born in 1895 and then Joseph in like 1896, 97 possibly. So in 1893 he joined Northampton, Massachusetts which was an independent baseball club and played a little bit for Wilkes-Barre in the Eastern League. And he is a great catcher.

That's the thing. No matter what he does, he's not the best hitter, except when it comes to punching a teammate maybe. But he's a great defensive catcher. So people are actually very interested in him from other teams. He got offers from all these different teams around New England to come play for their independent teams But then he was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates that yeah Yeah, who were managed by Connie Mack His neighbor and ex-teammate. So there we go. Connie Mac's gonna be there for him in

and ex-teammate. So there we go. Connie Mack's gonna be there for him. In 1894, that's so true about they take care of these ballplayers. Isn't that wild? Football players, they let the guy go die like- They can give a fuck. They're like wild animals. They just let them go wander into the bushes to die. Fuck you. They don't care. It's amazing. Baseball players will prop the shit out of each other. Basketball players do it too.

They help each other out a lot, they really do. Baseball players, there's always some guy who's, oh he's paying that old guy's bills right now and all this shit. It's crazy. So in 1894, the Pirates assigned him to Lewiston in the New England League for minor league shit here. By the way, the farm system, minor league teams,

that wasn't legal at that time in baseball. Oh. You couldn't have like your own farm team. Couldn't be growing your kids. So this is all like kind of a wink and a nod on the side, like, yeah, he's going to go over here for a while, wink, wink. Play for this league, yeah.

Yeah. And thus the transfer became an issue and Bergen's contract ended up being voided by the league. Oh, is that right league because they caught him doing it here. He hit 321 for Lewiston and did really well as a catcher too. Have they held it? Huh. Got children pitching? He's doing great. He got a pitch underhand?

No, his brother's the 170 hitter. Oh, oh that's a big hit. Not him, not him. His teammate Jack Sherrott said, quote, a phenomenal ball player, but so cranky that hardly anyone could get along with him. And it was only by the greatest diplomacy that he was gotten along with at all. A fucking lunatic.

Is he a drunk or is he just a dick? He's got mental problems. He's crazy. Really? As we'll talk about later on. He's actually a crazy person. Wow. Like he's, I don't know what the deal is. I don't know if it's, he needs medication or what.

Or something, yeah. He could be, back then they just went, I don't know. They wouldn't know. Crazy was a big umbrella back then. You just got under it. He just called you a madcap, yeah. You got under it. There was no real, you know, signs of anything else.

So he did so well in Maine that the manager signed him to Kansas City The Kansas City Blues in the Western League. He played there and did very well. Oh, that's a long ride Yeah, it's a quite a long ride on a horse Fuck from Lewiston Maine to st. Louis that is in a fucking in a wagon with a horse pulling you. That is not in a car or plane or any other. Bouncing the whole way. You might get it. Probably a train. Probably took a train.

Maybe. Yeah. I would think that's still a long ride. Still a long train ride. That's a long train ride today. Never mind. Yeah. Back then.

So one game after a nine to seven win over Indianapolis in July 1895, the Kansas City star noted Bergen's performance and said, Bergen caught an excellent game yesterday and kept the visitors anchored to the bases throughout the contest. So nobody steals on him. That's his game basically. He doesn't let base runners go, which is awesome. And his catching is so good that he is drawing all sorts of attention. And that year with Kansas City, he hits 407. So great catcher and hitting 407 here. One of the Kansas City star reporters said he's one of the cleanest hitters that ever

played the game in Kansas City. Okay. His play, everybody said he's got gotta be on a major league team. This is insane. So they're gonna call him up, but that won't last long. The club president and field manager, Jimmy Manning, became really, really, really tired of him really, really fucking fast here. They said his mood swings were wild.

They said he would flip from bright, highs to dark despondent lows. He's bipolar. Yeah. Is what it sounds like. He's bipolar and he's got nothing to keep it regulated. Mood swing wild. Wild. He was beginning to show a disturbing inclination to flee from shit too.

If he was uncomfortable, he'd just leave. So it's really fucking weird. Interesting. So when he's in Kansas City, his wife there, Hattie, she's gonna stay to work at the shoe factory here. She's a stitcher at the old shoe factory. So she stayed with her family in upstate New York during the season.

So now he is living in St. Louis, which is not a player Kansas City, whatever it is, which is not a place He's used to living. Sure. He's from up over here. His wife is staying with her parents So he's all alone in this place and for unlocked for a guy with mental problems. That's not a great thing here So his they said his over the course of a season he got more erratic and more erratic and the manager fucking drove him not he drove the manager nuts near the end of the 1895 season he had one of his quote spells yeah where there was a perceived slight that wasn't didn't exist that he said somebody did to him.

He was paranoid and he just left the team and they said, well, where the fuck did he go? Next day he didn't come back. They were like, where the fuck is he? He went back to Massachusetts. He was done. Is that right? He just took his shit and went home.

Jumped on the train. I'm leaving. Done. Crazy. But he ended up coming back So that was good and he ended up hitting 320 or 372 for that season with a hundred 188 hits 18118 runs scored in a hundred and thirteen games 188 hits and 113 games is fantastic And how many RBI's too? Yeah, so after that the Boston team who was the bean eaters at the time, Future Red Sox,

they were interested in him here. He's a local guy and yeah, he's a local dude who's hitting the cover off the ball and everything else. So they had just lost their catcher Charlie Bennett who was leaving for a hunting trip. He was leaving Kansas, he was running to catch a moving train when he slipped and fell under the wheels and both his legs were severed off by the train. He lived. He lived.

Wouldn't that make you a better catcher? I mean, yeah, your mobility is going to be down, but I think you can. Shit. You set up right there and that's where you're going to be. Your strike zone's perfect. It's perfect. So they lost that guy. He's obviously not coming back.

Oh my God. They needed a catcher. How often do you hear that today? Well, tell you what, the Atlanta Braves are really looking for a new right fielder. Well, the last guy they had last year, they liked him, but he fell under a train and lost his legs. So, it's like a hobo. Such a good catcher, he caught a train, guys.

Other than hobos, how many other people have had fucking this experience happen to them? I don't see a lot of major league players doing this. Yeah, probably the only major leaguer, but I'll bet a lot of people. A lot of people did, yeah. Soap salesmen, shitloads of them. Major leaguers, hobos more like it, probably. Hobos, I'm thinking.

A lot of legless hobos out there from this practice. So the Boston manager here, Frank Seeley, sent his best pitcher, Kid Nichols, who's a future Hall of Famer, to scout Bergen in Kansas City. They didn't even have scouts back then. Wow. He sent the pitcher to be like, go see if he's a good guy to throw to. You're not pitching for a couple of days.

You'll have a look-see at him. Crazy. And he said, Kid Nichols said, I saw at once that he was a good man. That's all he said. So the Boston's gave the Blues a thousand dollars and a shortstop for Bergen. So, yeah, now the problem is, though, somehow Bergen found this to be some sort of conspiracy against him. Oh, to go to the major leagues, which is crazy.

And he didn't, he thought that it was bullshit. He didn't believe it. Even though the team was telling him, listen, we sold you to Boston. Here's a guy also that's in the deal. He's here. You need to go to Boston. He was like, you're full of shit. I'm going to leave. And then you're going to, you're going to say I left and you're not going to pay me my money. And like he was, they're like dude you Got traded This happens. Do we have to turn ESPN on for you? You fucking idiot. Come on You were purchased for a G man. That's it, which was a lot of money back then. There was a good pie in a quiet suburb

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So the manager had to travel, had to go to North Brookfield to Bergen's house to assure he had to go. I'm the manager. Trust me. Trust me. You're coming here to play. This isn't a conspiracy. So he had to shore Bergen that he'd be used properly and also he had to figure out to salary because he had salary demands to interest in those days. The National League had a salary cap of twenty four hundred dollars per player by the way. That's the most you could spend and Bergen wanted top dollar. So I don't know about that.

So he is traded and here's an article, March 28th, 1896. It's on him being discovered basically. And you know how it has like those old articles have like multiple headlines of the same thing. This says the verge of trouble. And then under that it says baseball almost here and quiet week in the game. And then it says a word on Marty Bergen

and a bit of encouragement to humorist, to a humorist, notes and comments. I'll read this, okay. That's a funny yarn. There's a funny yarn going abroad about James McCormick discovering Martin Bergen, the most talked-of catcher of the Boston League club this season. Nobody discovered Bergen.

He discovered himself. But Louis Bacon had as much to do with bringing him out as anyone or else Bacon romances and he doesn't want, he doesn't waste time on that. That makes no sense, okay. I don't know what he's talking about. I was running the Salem club, said Mr. Bacon to us one day last summer, and I kept getting letters from a lad named Martin Bergen wanting to show,

or wanting a show to catch for me. I didn't want him. I had a good catcher and I told the lad to go elsewhere. He offered to play for almost nothing, but I couldn't see it it and I couldn't see it my way to play such a man One day my catcher got in his catching hand or got it in his catching hand and was laid up I apparently caught a bad ball And I was in a pickle since he we since I had been running close to the wind on catchers I thought of this young fellow down there who wanted a job.

I telegraphed him and he came. He had no friends and didn't seem to want any. That's interesting. But he was tall, strong, handy-looking and acted like a natural ball player. Can you catch? said I. I can try, said he. I put him in and he caught for me that season.

Out and a better backstop I never saw and I never saw any man in my life step up to the bat in And day in and day out and drive more line hits than Bergen He said in 1893 Bergen played the season without Season out with Northampton independent cat league catching to Gannon the bowlegged phenomenon who was with Portland for a time then in 94 he came to Lewiston and was the pet of the year, barring his rare sullen fits. Pet of the year? What the fuck does that mean? Playmate? What? That's... Penthouse? What are we talking about? He said him a telegram and he came, James, so who knows?

He was on a fucking train with both his legs. He caught every game every day of the season without accident or cessation. His only accident was a misplaced chaw of tobacco. He swallowed it by accident and had to retire from the game that day. Oh God, that'll make you so sad. That happened to Ron Gidry too 100 years later.

So that happens. Really? Yeah, Ron Gidry the Yankee hundred years later. So that happens. Really? Yeah, Ron Gidry the Yankee. Swallowed the actual cha? Swallowed it and had to come out of the game because he was so fucking sick. It just made him so sick. Oh, God. Not just the...

No, no, the tobacco. The whole piece, the wad. Yeah. Golly. That is bad shit. His only weakness was when he sulked over a wild pitch. Frequently he declined to run for them, even though the bases be full.

He'd be like, you threw the fucking pitch, stupid, and he's like stomping around while guys are running around the bases. That's not good. That's not good. He was not an enthusiastic player and never opened his mouth for the purpose of conversation. But wouldn't he crack him to the fence, straight as a die?

After he left Lewis. And it was the year it was in the year when the national protection slipped up. He went to Kansas City and thence thence to Boston. So thence. So 1896 Boston Bean Eaters. Here we go. Oh, major league team. They were 74, 57 and won that year for fourth in the

national league playing at the south end grounds. Three. Yeah. These baseball stadiums back then were like one layer of grandstands, they didn't have upper decks or anything. And the outfields were all open. Right. So the people would just stand there and they basically put like a rope out and that was the wall of don't go past this And that was the outfield. Yeah, pretty much. So they drew 240,000 people that year which is nothing. That's like five games now

But he made it damn it. He is on the team. I'm gonna say Grace right here for him. Is that right? Let's go with grace Yeah, grace could have been beforehand, but we're gonna go with Grace here, I think here. Now on this team, you got a couple of Hall of Famers. Three, is it? Four, you got Kid Nichols, the pitcher. You have a Billy Hamilton.

He is also a Hall of Famer. You have Hugh Duffy and Jimmy Collins, all Hall of Famers. Great guys. That most people have never fucking heard of because they played way before anybody gave a shit. So he gained a reputation right away for being a great catcher. A sporting news article described him as the greatest throwing catcher that the game ever produced.

He holds runners on, period. Connie Mack, who's also a catcher, said that Bergen was the only catcher he'd seen gun down a base stealer at second from his knees. He didn't even get up. Did not have to get up. Remember when Benito Santiago did that when we were kids? And it was like, dude. What the fuck?

Everyone, I remember watching Sports Center to see a highlight of him throwing someone out from his knees. That was cool as fuck. He was really great. That was 100 years later. Hutch could do it too. Kind of. He had out from his knees. Like, that was cool as fuck. It was really great, yeah. That was 100 years later. Pudge could do it too. Kind of, he had a different style though.

He was just a fat guy. Yeah. He had a lot of, if you get your weight behind it on your knee, you can get beat. Defensively, I'll take Santiago over fucking Pudge, personally, yeah, I don't know. Pudge is a guy who calls a lot of fastballs so he can throw baserunners out.

Is that right? Yeah, that's his whole thing. All of his pitchers said that. He's a guy who, you want a breaking ball, he wants a fastball because he doesn't want a guy to steal on him. And it's like, well listen, motherfucker, I'm working on this. I'm trying to get this guy struck out. A lot of catch.

I've heard Yogi Berra did the same thing, actually. Really? Yeah, absolutely. Well, he's so little. He's a little guy. He couldn't possibly get that ball up there if they're throwing a card He could he is a bad motherfucker. Yogi. Yeah, really Yogi was look at his batting stats. Yogi was a beast He was a fucking monster sure wish they had

Better cameras back then I know he could see the shit. Yeah, I love to watch a game of that guy. That'd be awesome So yeah, he said that they said from, from the get-go, Bergen always fighting with his teammates. One reporter said, quote, Martin Bergen, the young backstop, is unpopular with his fellow players on the Boston team. Bergen is a sullen, sarcastic chap, never associates with the players, always nurses a fancied grievance.

His disposition handicaps his playing talents. He's always got some grievance, some shit, he's been slighted and he doesn't, yeah. This is a mentally ill person who thinks that there's people out to get him, and they're not. They don't care, they just want him to play catcher and do a good job. Late 1800s, early 1900s guy with a 2016 hubris. Yeah, yeah.

That's amazing. And all the back then they just kind of ignored him because he was a little kid. guy with a 2016 hubris. You know what I mean? That's amazing. And all the back then they just kind of ignored him because that wasn't like, oh, another one of these guys. He was the only guy doing this. So they were just like, I don't know, he's weird.

He throws runners out. We barely got air conditioning, how dare you? Just ignore him. So let's see, the Boston Globe here, these are baseball notes, July 29th, 1896. I'm going to read it just how it says it. Great game, and then the next, there's nothing after that, there's like lines, like a poem here.

Great game, the same clubs today, the crowd gave the boys a splendid reception, Tom Tucker was the biggest attraction yesterday, His fielding was wonderful. Martin Bergen surprised the crowd by his fine ball playing. Fine. He's got fine ball playing. So if he didn't have fine ball playing, he might need this product because Jimmy the sales, the sales, the sales. Let's see you looking for some staying power. I'll show you this ad here. You got to stick around. Yeah. For staying power. That's what it looking for some staying power? I'll show you this ad here. Stick around yeah. For staying power. That's what it's called. For strength, for exertion, in training and in all important games and races the athletes

of Yale, Cornell, the University of Pennsylvania, etc. That's who we're all looking to. Ivy League athletes is the top ones., depend upon the great African tonic stimulant, Veno Colophra. What the fuck is that? I don't know. In cases of, oh this is hilarious, in cases of tardy convalescence. What does that mean? It means you're special and and chillin'. That's what it means. Means you're lazy and retarded, I believe, is what they're trying to call you there. A tardy convalescence. I don't know.

Debility, muscular weakness, mental depression, amnesia, oh, anemia, I'm sorry, this newspaper's hard to read. Nervous dyspepsia, functional heart affections, melancholia, you know, a little sad. Melancholia, functional heart affections, melancholia, asthma, and the coldness and feebleness of age. This preparation has proved itself to be a tonic invigorant vitalizer strengthener of the highest efficacy and adopted for the use of invalids and giant letters for some reason. This is all normal then.

Invalids is like, I don't know, eight times the size and bold letters too. Bunch of useless box. Invalid, you tardy convalescent of any age or condition. Its action is pervading and sustaining and followed by no bad effect. Giving strength to the strong, it gives greater proportionate strength to the weak. It's like old school steroids here.

Sold by druggists generally, Brunswick and Farmacle. I wonder if it's that fucking, that shit that that one guy was taking. The Pud Galvin guy that we did. I wonder if it's like similar to that, some sort of like steroids and conscience. it's a car all is what it is It's a lot of them back then work. If you have anything take this. Yeah Boston is one of the top teams in the league as well and

But he they finished fourth in his rookie season, which is not bad actually and he plays in 65 games He hits 269 in 65 games. He hits 269 for four homers. Home runs weren't anything back then. Six doubles, four triples, 37 ribbies. So not too terrible here. 1897, the team goes 93, 39 and three. That's great. That's terrific. They finished first in the National League that year. They should. Yeah. There's no World Series yet, by the way. Whoa. You just finished this. There was no real American league at the time that game later. Champion of this league. So you're the league champ. That was that. Yep. So that's all. Um, same thing this year, same players from last year. Um, he was injured a lot in 96 and 1896 and, but in 97, he really comes into his own here for the 97 season starts doing well in one game versus Washington.

He threw out seven attempted base dealers at second base seven. Back then the game was way more about hitting the ball on the ground and running. So base stealing was huge. Seven times a game now. No one's running on him anymore after that. You know what I mean? The umpire, they interviewed the umpire and the umpire said, Bergen did throwing the likes of which had never been seen in this city. By the way, that umpire is a cousin of Marty

Bergen's as well. That's helpful. So interesting. By the way, here's an article from here, nothing to do with our guy, but this is fucking amazing and it would be awesome. People think they were mean to Angel Hernandez a few months ago before he quit. Here's an umpire story from the Boston Globe in 1897. Big bold letters at the top. Terribly bad umpire is the headline. Terribly bad.

Terribly bad. Not, you know, oh here, it could be an opinion. Just, he sucks and here's why. He's a real piece of shit. What is his name, Kelfy, or Kelly? It's hard to see in this thing here. Kelly made a terrible mess of balls and strikes and Colonel's refused to go on after one of his decisions.

They stopped the game. He's losing the game. Fuck this! What's the point? He's just screwing it up anyway. The Colonel scrapping over the incompetent work of umpire Kelly resulted in them forfeiting the game to the Orioles in the 12th inning. The last innings had been played in darkness, Kelly having permitted players on both teams

to prolong the game beyond all reasonable time. Back then it was dark, they called the game. Because you can't see the fucking ball. And back then the ball wasn't bright white, it was covered in tobacco juice and dirt and shit, so you'd lose it. So they said by all reasonable time, by kicking on his decisions and other dilatory tactics.

He seemed to have lost his backbone and engaged in arguments with the players, in several of which he lost his temper. In the first inning, he put catcher Dexter out of which he lost his temper. In the first inning he put catcher Dexter out of the game for back talk. His decisions on balls and strikes were simply abominable. A girl in the grand stand could have done better. A little girl he could have brought in here. He was however impartial and partially incompetent, both teams suffering alike.

So he wasn't on the take or anything. He wasn't in the bag for one team. He's just shit. Just a dirt bag that doesn't care about this. Man. So this article later on, and another article says the Bostons were charging toward their fourth pennant in seven years. And the catcher asserted himself as a respected and even crucial member of one of the greatest teams of the 19th century.

Four of those Bostons would make it to Cooperstown, the ones that we talked about. Nichols, that kid Nichols won 361 games, which isn't bad here. He pitched, by the way, 532 complete games. Jesus Christ. What? Hugh Duffy had an 1894 hit 438. Wow. 438. Guys don't hit that. That's crazy. And then another guy sliding Billy Hamilton. I wonder if he slides a lot. Well his career record is 937 stolen bases which stood until 1979 when Lou Brock broke

it. Is that right? And now Ricky Henderson has it, yeah. So that's a lot. Yeah, guys don't steal bases. Even now, they put them fucking closer together for you. They go here. They're fucking huge and the pitcher, once he throws over there twice,

then you can just steal all you want. You can't do it anymore, yeah. And they still, nobody fucking steals bases anymore. What are we doing? Fucking run. I don't know. Hmm. Yeah, we have the greatest fastest at well fucking run then go to the next base pussy That's the fuck are you doing? Yeah? Well, they can they can whip that motherfucker, but they're not getting thrown out The bases are closer together now They you couldn't have done more to make it so you could steal with at will and they still don't fucking do it. They still sit there striking out 200 times a year. I'm

so fucking it's insane. So anyway, the third baseman Jimmy Collins was also good. They're talking about here. They said Bergen was embraced as a mate between the lines he played the unruffled pro. This year he hit 248 with two home runs, sorry, 45 RBI. He made $2,100 apparently that year. Which was big money back then, big money. Almost a league maximum. Absolutely, and maybe it is because he looked for solutions for his maladies. Maybe he had weak eyes.

Let's find out what he could do abouties. Sure. Maybe he had weak eyes. Let's find out what he could do about that. Weak eyes? Weak eyes. October 1st, 1897, Boston Globe, big giant ad. Weak eyes. 1897 LASIK. Directly due to coffee in many cases, it says here.

Oh! What? They've connected caffeine to eye weakness here somehow in the 1890s. And we still haven't figured that out. So I don't know. What kind of fucking coffee are they drinking? This is great. Directly due to coffee in many cases. Think not. Yeah, I think not motherfucker. Try Postom food coffee. Ten days. You'll be able to see again. Postom food coffee is whatever the fuck that is.

That'll cure your eyesight. Food coffee. Food coffee. All right. Okay. 1898, February 5th, 1898. Here's an article here. They say Fred Clark, Chanley Gansel, Jack Doyle, Marty Bergen, and Ed Delante are Major

League players who have promising junior brothers that may someday carve a mark in the top notch of baseball. Marty Bergen, the Celtic backstop of the Bean Eaters, oh wow I gotta get descriptive here, gives the junior Bergen brother his boost. He says, wow this is I'm gonna read it exactly apparently I Don't know if he really talked like this, but they gave him a heavy Irish accent in this shit. I Get his parents are from Ireland, but my mother's mother's from Italy. She doesn't go. Hey, come here to Jimmy I gotta talk to you now. She talks like Americans Okay, it says oh, oh, I oh

Tell ye be gobb He talks like Americans. Okay, it says, oy, oi, oy, tell ye, begob, he's as good as behoind, and they do H-O-I-N-D, behind the wind pad as meself. And oy have another brother, and oy have another one in the family who is just as handy behind the bat. Okay, I don't understand that. That's how they have it. So we don't know if he really talks like that saying his brother's good.

That's what he's saying. So in 1898 here, February 13th, there's a farmhouse that they're going to get and that'll come into play later on. They said a week ago, a member of the, uh, what is this? Oh, globe, globe staff. Jesus said Boston globe. That makes sense. These old newspapers sometimes are very light and they're sometimes there's like other ink things on them. So it's hard to read some of this shit. The globe staff was at West Brookfield and went over in a sleigh to the north where Martin Bergen has a 62 acre farm where he lives and has his little family. Wow. Bergen's place was indeed snowbound. It is on the border of a little community of straggling farmhouses actively connected with baseball for some time yet. All right. So, um, here we go. This is good. Here's an ad for Piles advice free Like the ass problem these yeah, uh-huh. Yeah to any person suffering from piles or fistula

Jesus I will send an account of my own case. Do I need to hear about your asshole? Really? I don't like that We're good. It's called pile. We're good. That's what they used to call fucking hemorrhoids piles Which sounds like there's like eight foot high of them. If you sit up, you'll be sitting way above your chair. He said, I will send an account of my own case and how I was cured after many years of distress and inconvenience. I have nothing to sell, but for the sake of humanity will directly afflicted to sure and

permanent cure. Address of Jim. So this guy's saying, tell me about your asshole. Yeah. And I don't fix it myself, but I'll show you where you can fix your asshole. I'll give you some asshole advice if you need it. Oh, look at that, you've got piles.

Oh, piles on piles. What a pile name. Piles of piles. 1898, Boston, they extended the season here, a good deal. They are 102 47 and 3 that's daytime games the ties so that's really good they're first in the National League again so they're champs again here and same kind of team July 1st during that year 1898 here is a National League baseball critic has called the turn on Marty Bergen the Boston catcher who was drafted from Kansas City at the end of the 1894 year His opinion of the young man's right to stellar honors on the diamond is voiced as follows

And it generally meets the approval of those who remember Bergen's none too extraordinary work here Quote just why Marty Bergen is the king of catchers is hard to see says the writer he is slow bad on fouls and not a good hitter he is a good backstop and a fair thrower he has made his reputation catching nickels because he's a hall of famer nick throws the light ball and it is true he holds up runners then pitches fast and the catcher has every chance in the world to make his plays without embarrassment. So the pitchers got a quick wind up is what he's saying. Put Bergen catching some of Louisville's or Philadelphia's crazy pitchers or the pitchers

Jim Maguire handles at Washington. And he probably would look like a second raider. Jack O'Connor of Cleveland ranks over Bergen and there are others. So he's overrated now. Yeah, just a minute ago he's the greatest thing. That is the 1898 equivalent of a social media meme saying how Derek Jeter sucks for some reason, you know what I mean? We see that all the time, if any of those sports pages are constantly posting shit like

that. Jordan for Christ's sake. Yeah, they do it with Jordan. LeBron sucks. Okay, they all suck. Did Kareem Abdul-Jabbar suck too? Why don't we just tell me how the top 10 scores in NBA history sucked.

Tell me that. Yeah, they're the worst. And how Jimmy Butler's better than them. Go fuck yourselves. Tired of hearing shit. Just tired of it, I'm fucking tired of it. I'm tired of people not living in the real world. If Steph Curry played with fucking Kobe, he'd

He would have shown him what to watch. Yeah, if he if Jordan was playing the If the 90s Bulls were playing the fucking 17 18 whatever the fuck Warriors they'd get smoked. No, what rules are we playing under? Because Steph Curry would be injured in halfway through the first quarter if we're playing with 90s rules Because you can't play with this you can't no do that They tell Rodman clothesline him when they go around for a pick get him out of the game You know that guy likes to kick people in the balls Punch him in the mouth. Yeah, just do that

Fuck so but that's funny how they even did that back then. Here is an incident at a hotel. Okay. Here we go. It goes, I'll just read this article. He was a favorite of the fans. So the money changers in the front office loved him. He came back in 98 to have his best season, hitting 289 over 120 games and earning his

reputation as the best fielding catcher in the game. Yet that year, he also grew increasingly hostile and unbalanced. And according to the Boston Morning Journal, quote, assaulted several of the most inoffensive members of the team while in the West. Like the nicest, the nicest guys. That's who he's fighting now. Wow. Some nice utility infielders getting the shit beaten at him for no reason. All this came to a boil on July 28th in what the sporting news would describe as a sensational scene instigated by Bergen over breakfast. You're fighting at breakfast?

Unbelievable. In the fancy dining room of the Southern Hotel in St. Louis. The night before, on the train bearing the team from Brooklyn, pitcher Vic Willis and other players had began kidding one another. Bergen took a hand in the fun-making, the news reported, and good fellowship was the rule. He was on an upswing. So we can all break balls, we can have fun. You don't know when he's in his crazy time. Suddenly... He knows that. Well, you'll know it shortly. You'll get it. Well, somebody said something that went past the line, yeah, they said suddenly

Bergen grew morose and refused to join in the horseplay. He growled at Willis, but no one paid any attention to it as it was nothing unusual for him to relapse into one of his spells when he would not talk, not talk with or be talked to by anyone. The next morning Willis came down to breakfast and was escorted by the head waiter to a seat next to Bergen. The 22-year-old Willis, a 6'2 rookie on his way to winning 25 games that season, greeted the catcher as he sat down. If you don't get away from me, snarl Bergen, I'll smash you for sure. Why?

He's still mad at him from the night before. Willis refused to move and Bergen reached over and slapped him in the face. This is great. My Christ. In the middle of a hotel restaurant, I love this. At breakfast. At breakfast, smarting from the blow,

Willis appeared ready to fight, but he checked himself. Several players urged him to another table then out of the room. Let's not have a brawl in the hotel fucking restaurant. checked himself. Several players urged him to another table than out of the room. Let's not have a brawl in the hotel fucking restaurant. Sealy warned him not to read or warned him not to retaliate quite quote, I'll make a sacrifice of my personal feelings and swallow the insult in the interests of the club, vowed Willis. But if Bergen makes another break at me, we'll settle the question of which is the better man. Oh,

we're going to step outside and I'll show you what it's like. Yeah, Bergen. Bergen refused to apologize, claiming he was made the butt of jokes on that train, which is what they were doing. They were fucking breaking balls. This is like a bunch of comics hanging out. This is what athletes do. Yeah, it's fun. They break balls. They say horrible shit to each other. I remember reading in a bunch of books basically don't say anybody's wife is a fat pig and everything else is Don't say your kids are ugly your wife's a fat pig and or a whore and everything else is fine Those are nuclear those are new things fine. Everything else is fine You can say a guy plays like shit walks funny has a bad dick with fucking spots all over it from fucking hookers

It doesn't matter. Bergen refused to apologize, claiming he was made the butt of jokes on the train, and Sealy warned him against any further trouble, telling Bergen, if you say the word, I'll begin negotiations at once to trade you. I'll fucking trade you. So stop this. Bergen said that he wanted to stay, but that nobody would make a fool of him.

The other players, trying for a fifth pennant in eight years, admired Bergen as a hustling, hard-working player what were livid over the slapping incident. It's his disposition to be gloomy and morose and we'll give him all the latitude we can in order to keep peace with him, one player said. We'll go out of our way, that's what you do, you avoid that guy. I mean this is like Michael Irvin doing this to rookies. You know what I mean? He did that back in the day Yeah, it was a dick going out of their way to try to calm him and and appease him appease him

Just yeah get to the end of the season and hopefully just you know, make everything balance and we'll win Uh, they also said that scrap with vic willis was an outrage Bergen made an ass of himself and brought discredit on all of us by his inexcusable conduct. It's a surprise to me that we were not all thrown out bag in baggage. There's no boycott on Bergen, but there is nothing cordial in our relations with him and so he understands. He has made trouble with a good many of the boys and we just give him a wide berth.

But he's a ballplayer and once we get into a game personal feelings are set aside and admiration of the artist for such he is. So yeah he's how many of these guys exist? Right he's so good we overlook every we overlook it for this yeah he's Antonio Brown or he's Terrell Owens or you name the wide receiver and he's that guy. And probably a million that we don't even know about. Tons we don't fucking know about. They said the Southern Hotel incident suppressed by the writers at Sealy's request during the season finally broke in the sporting news in mid-October after Boston won the pennant,

but the story did not force the team to trade its star catcher. The club had come to perceive him as too valuable. Since the middle of 98 season, however, the Bostons had been a house unevenly divided. An entire team set against one man. Matters could only grow worse. As the Nebraska State Journal noted via WIRE reports, Martin Bergen, the eccentric catcher of the Boston team, is in trouble again. Bergen, always surly, often lets his temper get away from him and makes breaks from which there is no provocation. He hit pitcher Willis in the face because he sat down at the same table in the dining room. The incident was hushed up at the

time but is likely that Bergen will be traded before the opening of next season as Seeley says he has stood Bergen's crankiness as long as he can. Near the end of the 1898 season, Bergen threatened his teammates after an altercation on the bench. He declared he would, quote, club them all to death at the end of the season. You wait till the season's over, I'm killing everybody. The weapon I'm going to do it with is right here. I'm holding it.

We all have one. I'm holding it. I'm gonna get you all. He hit 280 that year though. So they were like, he hit 280 and we won a title. It's hard to argue with. It's crazy, he made $2,400 too. They also think that, I'm looking back and reflecting here, in addition to being super paranoid,

they think that he probably is bipolar and also possibly schizophrenic as well. Oh boy. Later on, now that all the reports, they go, he sounds like all of his symptoms sound schizophrenic as well. A Dr. Carl Salzman, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, who examined many accounts, this is much later he examined all the accounts of him. He said, if I had to make a diagnosis, that would be it. He said, schizophrenia can be marked by

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He said it's a brain disease that causes the person to be more vulnerable to the usual stresses of life. Sounds like Vard Marty to me. They said today they would treat him with drugs and psychotherapy, but he said in the 1800s there weren't any medications to treat this illness at all. So even if he sought help, it wouldn't have mattered. They couldn't have helped him. It wouldn't matter at all.

They would have thrown him in a... Basically it was throw you in a room or you're fine. Those are the only options. So they said there was... Are you this extreme or are you fine? Yeah. Do you need to be housed in a straight jacket or not? He said there was no psychotherapy. Many people with Bergen symptoms were put in hospitals and locked up. The only medicine Bergen seems to have been prescribed were bromides,

mild sedatives that according to Salzman were commonly used at that time to quiet people down, especially if they were anxious or had trouble sleeping. Downers, just downers. He said though though against Bergen's afflictions, bromides were worthless though, and it wouldn't have helped him at all. 1899, Boston's 95, 57 and 1. They're second in the National League, so they don't win the pennant that year, but still damn good year here. Competing every year. For the last three years, they're one or two. That's terrific. And that's going to go on like through the first decade of the 1900s too. They were very, very good. They were in a bunch of the first World Series, and then they got Babe Ruth, and things

weren't going as well. But Babe Ruth was doing really well pitching for them, pitching scoreless innings for them. So that was really great. Then they traded Babe Ruth. And then it starts. Sold Babe Ruth, and then they went in the toilet for 100 years or so, 80, 85, 90 years or so. Until they got Johnny Damon. Yeah, they needed Johnny Damon to break them out of it here. They needed a man that barely speaks English. Yeah, that would have helped a lot. If only they would have had them back then,

they could have really done something. They could have gone from second to first. That was Moe Vaughn back then. Oh man. They said, Meanwhile here, the stresses on the field and off mounted throughout 1899 the crowd seemed to grow louder and closer around Bergen his wife became ill with tuberculosis Which is oh? Normal back then for you know whatever but not now Fuck his paranoid fantasies had become self-fulfilling

Following the st. Louis incident his teammates indeed gave him a wide birth and were no longer cordial. They just ignore him, basically. Just get away from it. Off the field. Yeah. In front of the Burnett House, a hotel in Cincinnati, sportswriter Harry Weldon of The Enquirer came upon Bergen in a jolly good humor and asked him what he thought of the pennant race. And he said, while why we will win the pennant in a gallop boasted Bergen, it's a cinch for us. All happy. He said, then Weldon would have crawl on the sporting news the week the following January a scowl came over Bergen space and said, quote, but it

won't make a damn bit of difference to me whether they win or not. He said So they were like what the fuck he said. Yeah, it's gonna be great. It's a cinch We're gonna win it then he goes not that I give a fuck That's so weird so the guy said why not reasonable question Quote because I won't be with this bunch much longer. I'm going to quit them I'm tired of traveling with a lot of knockers and backbite errs. Whoa, they are all giving me the worst of it I'll shake the gang just as soon as we get to Boston

So they're like what the fuck now the Boston pitcher Frank Killen was listening to this And other teammates started gathering around like this motherfuckers just saying he hates us and to the press deal Yeah I guess he stopped talking at that point. Ten minutes later Weldon was talking to Sealy the manager when Killen came over and took the writer aside and said Marty is out there crying as hard crying like his heart would break. He sent me here to ask you not to put anything in the paper about what he told you. So he went from this is great everything's great to I don't give a

shit I'm leaving here to I don't know why I said that, I feel terrible, please don't print that, I feel awful, sobbing. Yeah. Mental problems, he's got mental fucking problems. Yeah, that is crazy. Then, so he said yeah, then the pitcher turned to Sealy, the manager, and asked what's going on with him, what's wrong with Marty?

Right. Sealy said quote manager, and asked what's going on with him, what's wrong with Marty. Right. Sealy said, quote, he is insane. Which is, I mean, you said it. You summed him up quick. He said, I've done everything in my power to get along with him. He is possessed of the insane idea that none of us like him. I will have to get rid of him.

He's the greatest catcher in the business, but there's no use trying to keep him on the team. Yeah, you said too much. This is fucking nuts. So the bean eater's president had warned Sealy that Bergen was dangerous and feared that he might shoot someone. The owner said, keep an eye on this guy because I feel he's going to shoot one of these guys. Players thought that Bergen was growing more and more detached from reality.

He gets crazier as the years go by. Some attributed this to drinking, but he was known only to be a, not a drinker. Social drinker? Not a drinker at all, and he never hung out in saloons on the road. He's not a big alky, he's just not that kind of guy. They said he reads in his room after dinner

rather than carousing with the fellas there. All the other guys go out and get hammered, he goes back to his room and reads. So they said, maybe he needs booze. Maybe that's the problem. When the team was at home in Boston, Bergen always spent the night at his farm. So he'd drive back out to his farm.

Yeah. Neighbors said that he would play with his children all day, rarely associating with others. Oh, so he's a good dad? Gee, sorry. He's not at the saloons. He's playing with his kids, which is super weird back then. Goes home to his kids. What a piece of shit.

Fucking loser, man. What, is he crazy? Look, he must be paranoid schizophrenic at least. So, throughout an 1899 season, Bergen pestered his manager for time off to return to his family. He would play a few games and then ask to go home. Which is weird, can I go home for a couple days? On April 24th, 1899, Bergen's son Willie, it says it's Willie, but then it wasn't his name,

because that was his brother's name. I don't get it. But he had Joseph and Martin. Exactly, but they said this article says Willie, you never know. Either way, his five-year-old son passed away from diphtheria he had the dipped hat while Martin was out of town where did that come up with we it was like I think it was this I know but I think it was a small-town murder like five years

ago where he said that the dip tip we were talking about that yeah we're talking about that so he died while his father was out of town. Diphtheria. Martin said it troubled him that he couldn't get home before the end of the religious service late to his favorite child's funeral. Favorite child. Funeral. He said, it's pretty tough.

This is what Bergen said, it's pretty tough that my boy should be taken away, but it seems a great deal harder still to think that I should get home in time to see him being taken out of the door in a box. They used to do funerals at home back then. So he spent two weeks at home with his family and then rejoined the club, but they said after that he just went downhill. I can't imagine. Which I mean, yeah, if he's fucked up in the head anyway, and now he's got actual shit to worry about, think about and be sad.

Anybody would might need more than two weeks off if their kid died. Their five-year-old died. His five-year-old laid in state in the parlor of our home. Fuck man. So July 20th, 1899 the Boston team was traveling by train to Cincinnati. The guys are having a good time, they're playing cards, but they said Marty sat withdrawn from his teammates. Again, understandable, kid just died. You know, sad about his dead kid. He's a little sad.

This is the only reasonable thing he's done so far. Yeah, right. The train stops in DC, Bergen hops off, and he took off. He just left the team. There was a break, he popped off, and they got where they were going, they're like, where the fuck is Marty?

He took off and got a train up to Boston to go home. He's going home, that's it. He hopped off, jumping the club and returned home, and Jimmy Collins of Buffalo, the crack third baseman of the Boston said, quote, he was a good fellow, and though had some peculiarities every man on the team liked him, which we know isn't true. He was a great baseball player too and few backstops could equal his clean work. It is a horrible thing that he should have ended his brilliant career in the

way he did. He occasionally had trouble with some of the boys on the team but we all considered him irresponsible. We all considered him irresponsible. Nobody ever tried to get back at him. They're like, he's crazy. So don't go. Nobody's holding a grudge. He left and never came back. Never came back. He had a habit of disappearing when his services were most needed. But I remember of only one occasion of this kind. Then he said he left the train. The team was on its way to Cincinnati on the same train with us with us was the New York team. We had two special cars.

The boys were playing cards or other games. We were all gathered in groups laughing and talking, all except Bergen. Afterwards, some of us remembered that he was sitting all alone in the corner of the car, apparently brooding or thinking deeply about something. Said we stopped at Washington for a short time. As our train was about to continue on its way out of the New York continue on its way

one of the New York players came into our car and asked us what was the matter with Bergen we looked about the car but we could see nothing of him then someone told us look out on the platform he's waiting on the train the other way there was Bergen with his grip in his hand, walking away from the train as fast as possible. Our train had started so that it couldn't stop. We didn't hear anything more from him for a long while. Wow. He just took off, man.

He said, then we learned that he had returned to his home in Brookfield. He did not rejoin the team until we returned to Boston. He caught in the first game and received an ovation when he came out on the field. There he is! You made it! Yay! Look at the yay! His leaving the team as he did left us with only one catcher on our western trip. Clark did great work, but if he had been taken ill, we would have been in a bad box. Bergen told me afterwards that he had got to thinking of the folks while on the train and when we stopped

at Washington he couldn't resist the temptation of taking the first train homeward. He said it seems to me that the fact that he was all the time thinking that everybody was working against him or was trying to injure him showed that his mind was unbalanced. He thought too much about his folks while we were on our trips, it seems to me. Okay, now another article describes him as, quote, the hardest man in the National League to manage. Okay. A writer describes him as the erratic catcher of the Boston club who deserted the club annually

since his connection with it and always at a time when his services were most needed. He'd just leave for no reason. Take off when we need him. The guy said his grievances are fanciful. Of a moody disposition, he imagines that his fellow players are leagued against him and are intent on bringing his downfall. The contrary is the case. Manager Sealy and his players have treated the great backstop with unusual consideration. Yeah, they go out of their way to not fuck with him.

It would be the longest and most spectacular walkout of Bergen's career, and it infuriated the Boston team because it left them as they contended for a third pennant in a row with only their backup to catch a game after the game in the midsummer heat. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, catchers, you have multiple catchers because you need them. They get knocked around a bit too. The Boston Globes' TJ Murrname, a former player who'd become respected, the most respected of the nation's baseball writers, journeyed to Bergen's farm in late July to

get the story and found the shed full of hay, the corn crop healthy, and Bergen standing in the barn doorway with little Florence and Joe. He's out there busy. He's out there doing his shit. He complained to Murnane of all the catching he had done, of his shattered nerves and his need for rest. Two years before, following the 97th season, Bergen told Murnane, many a time I've asked for a leave of absence simply because I thought I would go mad if I worked another day without rest.

Tell me about it, Marty. Now, Jesus. Now, Bergen told the reporter, Manager Sealy would never listen to my reasons for coming home Always turning me off with the remark that will cost you fifty dollars. You can't give me any stories You can't just leave the team right the any of the other guys taking off when no one knows just leaving Other any other job you can just walk out on is there one. I don't believe so No at Chicago on the last trip at least four members of the Boston team went out of their way to abuse me every time I went to bat he said they would call strike him out. I left the club when it reached Washington

I found manager Sealy and the rest of the players were trying to avoid me Do you think the guys were chanting strike out our own guy or do you think that's in his brain? And even if they are fucking with you, isn't that part of the fucking game? Get a hit, grab your dick and fucking run around the bag. That's all. I was telling you, man. So, his return to Boston on August 4th, a little more than two weeks after he left, unexpectedly was the crowning moment of his career.

Against the Washingtons, Bergen nailed all three runners who tried to steal on him. The fans gave him an ovation every time he came to bat. In the ninth inning with two out, the Boston's down 3-2, and men on second and third, Bergen drove a single to left that scored both runners and won the game. How about that? Fans vaulted the barricades at the South End grounds to shake Bergen's hand and pound him on the back. Wrote Murnane, after the game Bergen was a mark for the crowd who cheered him until he went out of sight. His teammates were still riled over what Bergen had said about them in the interview with Murnane

at the farm and said they were even more rankled by the ovations for Bergen, which suggested that the crowd had taken Bergen's side. Yeah, yeah, that happens. They like him and they don't know the behind the scenes. The next day before the game, the players demanded that Bergen side. Yeah, that happens. They like him and they don't know the behind the scenes. The next day before the game, the players demanded that Bergen retract what he told Murnane, but he refused. Why are you fucking with him? Just stay out of the way. Why would you go, you better take that back. He's not going to take, he's fucking nuts. Do you ask crazy people to take back crazy statements they made? Who does that? You just move along. Yeah. Claiming to the press that they had nothing but the best feeling for their comrade and that they were not guilty

of the charges of keeping aloof from him, the players threatened to strike if he didn't do it. Really? Fuck yeah. They were 15 minutes late for the game and they took the field only after Bergen resorted to the oldest dodge of all, saying that Murnane had, quote, incorrectly quoted him, which good to see people still use that one today. After his return to the team, he caught fewer and fewer games, he smoked heavily, and chewed a 10 cent plug of tobacco every game. That's a shitload of tobacco back then. Dion listened to his woes and diagnosed the problem as, quote, tobacco heart. Ha ha ha ha!

What? Which is frayed nerves due to excessive use of nicotine. No. No. And poor eyesight from coffee? Yeah, your coffee's giving you eyesight issues, and your tobacco is fraying your nerves, which is really the opposite of what tobacco does for you.

It's a chiller, a calmer. When you first start it gets you all riled up. And then when you're addicted and you need some, it tends to do that to you. Yeah, but not tobacco heart. Not like clogged arteries or anything, frayed nerves. Tobacco heart. God, I hope there's an ad for tobacco heart medication. As the Sandusky Star noted, it is now conceded that Boston Nine dropped out as champion factor largely because of the trouble between the players and Martin Bergen, the catcher. Ever since Bergen's first desertion of the Nine,

there has been a feeling of bitterness. Oh, it's's bitter intensified by the cordial reception that Bergen received when he returned to the team i love that the players were pissed off that the fans were sharing the public did not understand the facts as well as the players and the players felt aggravated that the misunderstanding had arisen as a banger uh b Daily Whig and Courier put it, Martin Bergen is accused of creating dissension in the Boston team, which is the cause of the champions recent defeats. Also now they have a scapegoat to blame. If you're the manager, then you didn't win. You can go, well, it's all that guy's fault.

That's super easy. Toward the end of the season, he was estranged from his teammates. He claimed that they continuously and maliciously reminded him of his dead son. Hey, what about your dead kid there Marty? Why would they do that? I don't think they did do that. Why would you do that? Who the fuck would do that?

Causing him a great deal of stress. Maybe they said, hey, how are you doing? Are you okay? How's your family doing? That's reminding him of it and causing him stress when they're trying to be nice people. You never know how he would take something positive. Yeah, perceptions, everything, sure. They said, unhappy, Bergen jumped the club yet again at the end of September without

a word and went home for a few days complaining of a sore hand. He returned unannounced a few days later, showing up at the ball yard in Brooklyn a few minutes before a game and donning his gear without speaking to anyone, not even Sealy. Two days later, Bergen was lounging with some Boston players outside Brooklyn's Hotel St. George, appearing to be in the best of moods. When two children began needling them, Boston couldn't beat nothing, they said. They're kids. Little kids. They're harassed. They're fucking heckling an opposing team. Yeah, it's kids baseball fans. Yeah, according to the Boston Evening Record, Bergen laughingly chased them.

Just little Brooklyn kids you're chasing, that's all. And when he caught them, sat down on a curb stone with one child on each knee, making them say, hooray for Boston, before he would let them go. Say it, you piece of shit. He fucking held kids down. Say hooray for Boston, before he would let them go. Say it, you piece of shit. He fucking held kids down. Say hooray for Boston. Oh, kick your little asses. Kidnapped them until they said what he wanted them to say.

He did the say uncle thing. Wow, yes he did. Say you love Boston, say uncle. That is fucking hilarious. I don't even know what to say there. Late in the 99 season, with the Boston's trailing the Brooklyn's, Bergen read some stinging rebukes of him in the press.

The Boston Post, which blamed him for the club's woes, wrote that Bergen has not a good friend on the team and patronizingly referred to him as a boy who will not mind. Okay. He won't do what he's told. Apparently he won't mind here. He had vowed to the reporter that he would never play for another team, but Sealy and Sodden talked to openly of trading him. Under increasing stress, Bergen felt he was going to pieces. Near the end of the season while catching against Philadelphia, he experienced a psychotic

episode that caused him to give up so many past balls that Sealy removed him from the game. He had a meltdown on the field, couldn't catch anymore. In game. Oh my God. He had like a Knoblock or Steve Sacks or Rick Ankeel moment there. So as the pitch rich reached the plate, the Springfield Republican reported months later, Bergen would leap out of the way. So he wasn't even like going to catch and missed.

He would like get out of the way. He's afraid of the ball. Yeah, he had a meltdown here. Letting the ball go by because he imagined someone was standing next to him and making a fierce stab at him with a knife. Wow. I think let's go back to schizophrenia.

He's out of his fucking mind. He may need to be in a hospital. Yeah, the next day, a headline in the Boston Globe read, Bergen makes a farce of his position. And they said Nichols pitches superbly, but his support is off. Bergen makes a farce of his position. I have the article right here. Let's a third strike pass with two men out.

Sealy puts in Sullivan to catch the remainder of the game. They talk about Martin Bergen is responsible for the loss of the game, allowing the third strike to pass him with two men out and two men on bases, both scoring on the poor work. The home team won the game in this inning. Dolan let off with a single, Orthwood hit a grounder with Low fumbled long enough to lose a double play, but got his man at first. Thomas was struck out. Bergen threw wild to try for Dolan at second base, and the man went to third. Cross drew a base on balls and went to second as Bergen muffed the pitch.

De La Hanty was at sea on Nichols' clever work. The third strike was fast and he missed it. So did Bergen, the ball going through him as if he were paper. One run scored and his slow way of going for the ball let the second man in. Then Childs struck out. Nichols was provoked and made a big kick on the bench and Sullivan was sent out to warm up as Sealy had had enough of Bergen for one day. The catcher still had a chance to redeem himself, but failed. In the fourth inning, Stahl singled and went to second on Collins' single to right. It was Stahl's play to keep on to third, but as with the rest of the Boston men, taking chances is played out. Bergen missed three cut curves and took his place on the bench. So he fucked up like crazy.

As the season drew to a close with Wee Willie Keeler and the Brooklyn Bridegrooms pulling away to beat Boston for the flag, Bergen's mental condition grew more acute. Though of average stature, 5'10", 170 pounds, he appeared to grow larger and more fearsome to his teammates, evolving into a semblance of James Waite in Conrad's N-word of the narcissist, who inspired such fear among his mates that they shrank from even looking at him. Boston club president Arthur Sodden told his boys to be careful around Bergen. He's the one who said, I think he's going to kill everybody. He sought remedies from doctors and importuned three Catholic priests.

Maybe he's possessed. Maybe that's the problem. Run out of meds. What happened? My, the fucking, what the hell was that shit called? The elixir doesn't work? Well, maybe he's possessed. Maybe we'll get a priest in here.

Bergen rarely missed a Sunday mass to still the demons he had nested in his soul. That's what nested in his soul is what they said. He brooded in the clubhouse staring into the distance for hours. Bergen registered numerous complaints about his teammates throughout the years. From the other perspective, Bergen's bizarre actions took a toll on his teammates, according to the Boston Braves – a book later on written about them – by the end of 1899, some didn't want him to return to the club, plus several were seriously concerned about their safety around the disgruntled player.

Okay, yeah, so I think the Boston Bean Eaters turn into the Braves possibly not the Red Sox. Not sure. That's an interesting one. I forgot all about that. So Boston that year only played 72 games. He hit 258 and that's that he made $2,100 though. So not bad.

Kid Nichols, the pitcher, explained, hall of famer, how the catcher's important to the team. They said Baltimore beat us the next three years after we lost catcher Charlie Bennett. Then we got Marty Bergen from Kansas City and won the pennants again in 1897 and 1898. They said Bergen, though, was often off the topic of trade rumors rumors or often the topic of trade rumors because of his moodiness melancholy inability to mesh with teammates and penchant for sulking and leaving The New York Giants owner Andrew Friedman tried to work a trade for the catcher on more than a few occasions at the time of later

On most within the game assumed that he would be playing for the Giants in 1900 That's what everybody thinks is gonna happen during his time in Boston, he had a lot of teammate problems. They said he suffered spells, quote, acted queerly, as people put it in those days. Just means weird. Long before he joined the Boston club of the National League in 1896. And the fact that he had stuck there for over four years revealed how much a team was willing to endure to have him behind the plate. They said though he was an adequate hitter, the Boston Scribblers had crowned him King of the Catchers. He was the Charles Johnson of his day. You can tell when this article is written, the 90s. A nimble fielder with a bullwhip arm who could snap the ball to second base without so much as moving his feet. John Gaffney, one of the premier umpires of the times,

never knew Bergen as a complainer, and this is an error noted for its theatrics. He said, I've been umpiring him for four years, and in that time he never raised a kick at any of my decisions. Okay, interesting. One said, the worst I ever heard him say was, Gaff, look out for the corners a little sharper.

That's what he'd say to the ump. Watch the corners, yeah. No man could catch more gracefully or do with less apparent exertion than Bergen. Every move he made counted. He and Dick Buckley were the only two players I've ever seen who could throw to the bases without moving their feet. That was one of Martin's strongest points. It worked havoc with base runners. So at the end of 1999, there's several sources

that say he had a broken hip somehow. Yeah? They said that- A weapon or some shit? Don't know, they said, who knows, farm work maybe? Yeah, right. The story goes that this injury was career threatening and sent him into an even deeper depression. However, there's no evidence of him having a broken hip.

So it just, this seems, what's going to happen seems like just a further decline of his mental capacity here. So he said he had a lot of problems. He did have an operation for an abscess on his right hip on January 28th, 1899, which was the result. Yeah, a result of sliding near home plate. That was, that's for sliding. But that didn't stop him from playing the whole year.

They said there was lingering effects maybe possibly. They said he played the entire game on October 13th, the next to the last day of the season, and was not injured and didn't play in the season finale. He visited his doctor after the season without mentioning any significant hip troubles so they don't think that's true. Plus he's the a lot of trade rumors he's the subject of it no one said once his hip heals that never came up so they don't know. They say the hip surgery required him to be under anesthesia for four hours.

His doctor and family noted that he never seemed to recover mentally from the operation. Seems like he's right in line with how crazy he was before the operation. They said most important here to his frail state, most important contributing factor was the death of his five-year-old. Yeah, that'll do it. That'll fuck you up, man. That'll fuck you up. This was compounded by guilt over the fact

that he was away from home at the time. So immediately after the season of 1899, Bergen talks with his doctor and his confidant here, Dr. Dion, who later told reporters that all seemed fine, but the doctor soon heard from family, friends, and neighbors that Bergen was not fine. He's acting crazy as fuck. Bergen said, oh, I'm good. And then, yeah. So he was like, oh, I guess he's doing all right.

And then everybody else went to him and like, don't listen to him. He's fucking crazy. Something's wrong. They said Bergen began acting wildly complaining of the circus going on in his head. Circus. Circus. That's. Oh no. And telling of an urge to run off into the woods and just sit there. Yeah, he does that. He's fucking nuts.

The day after the season ended, his brother Williams summoned the doctor. The doctor rode out to the farm, Martin called Snowball, and according to accounts that appeared months later, found him pacing frantically in front of the house. The doctor said, what's the matter? He said, doctor, my head is spinning. I have lots of strange ideas. Well, I'm gonna go ahead and get back in the wagon now and head on out of here. Any of my can patent and make money on?

Anything like that. Anything that will cure weak eyes. Do you have anything for that? I would help. He said, what sort of ideas? Maybe it's fun. Yeah. Tobacco heart? Hey. He said, yeah, maybe that. I have an idea that someone is trying to injure me,

he said. I don't know what I'm doing. I played ball all last summer and people tell me I played fine, but I can't remember hardly any of it. He's schizophrenic. He said, in fact, I don't remember hardly anything about the last game I played in it. I played it in a trance Except that when it was all over a man came up to me and said Martin you played great and after he gave me a cigar And after and he gave me a cigar, but I was afraid to smoke it It was a big cigar and it looked to me like poison. I thought this man had been told to kill me Oh, no, some guy said, great game and handed him a cigar.

It's schizophrenic, man. He said, Oh my God, he's trying to fucking kill me. Yeah. That's who, who, who. Um, Dion mixed a bromide for him. I'll mix you up something. Don't worry about it. But Bergen was reluctant to take it when Hattie poured it. Uh, the next day during a second encounter with Dion, Bergen was reluctant to take it when Hattie poured it. The next day, during a second encounter with Dion, Bergen confessed, I thought someone in the National League had found out that you were my family physician and had arranged to give me some poison. He didn't even trust his own doctor because he thought the league got to him and was trying to give him a poison concoction since he wouldn't smoke that cigar.

Wow. He said, I did not take it from my wife because I didn't wish hers to be the hand that poisoned me. Bergen told the reporter that he walked out on teams when he was seized by an uncontrollable urge to cut home. He told the doctor that he left the Boston's in July because he feared that players were trying to kill him and that on his journey home, he walked sideways through the car so he could see his pursuers coming at him from either

way. Oh boy. Dude. Head on a swivel. These fucking people they don't care they're just trying to play baseball. What happened? That he is he's got mental problems I feel bad for this guy he's a fucking mess this has got imagine being in his head, dude. It's over, man. He's got, that's a mess. And also we don't know if back then they, I don't know, the guys crowded the plate, maybe they didn't wear helmets. I don't know if he got hit in the head a whole bunch

or what the fuck's going on. But, oh well, if you're Stone Cold Steve Austin, that doesn't matter anyway. It doesn't matter. No. That the way, by the way, he's dumb. I never thought Stone Cold was dumb. I thought that was just his act, but when he said, I don't believe in CTE, I said, wow,

you're a fucking dummy. I don't believe in it. That makes me think you have it, you stupid asshole. So he described being frightened by teammates, feeling that they were out to kill him. He said he always sat sideways on the bench and in the clubhouse and on trains in case his teammates decided to attack Let's get him. He was always looking for them to come attack him That's why he sat in the corner of the train by himself so you could see anybody coming He also believed that people in general he wanted to quit baseball so he could get away from these people and stop being the

Constant subject of murder plots, know right right he also believed that people in general including the boston team and other national league players were plotting against him as well the doctor gave him a bromide again and told him to repeat the dosage in three hours however the doctor did give him some advice that seemed to work. They said that Bergen chewed and sucked on tobacco constantly. The doctor suggested that he quit the habit as it was contributing to his nervousness and anxiety. They said he did that and felt better for a time. Okay.

I mean, placebo is anything, you know what I mean? You can say take this nothing for a time. Later, Dion had what he described as a nice pleasant conversation with Bergen who got up to leave his office and said this has been a pleasant Talk and it's strange how it has rattled me Yeah, that is strange Bergen also everything yeah Bergen also confided in his pastor that he believed himself to be insane and Feared his own actions that he can't control them. Oh no. He asked for help but nobody did anything. He literally was going to his he went to his priest, he went to his doctor, he went to everybody that he knew

that possibly could help and asked for help and nobody did anything. They gave him a bromide and said stop chewing tobacco. That was all they gave him in HelpWise. That's all they could do. No one knew what to do with this. And every time he leaves them, he doesn't feel good. It makes it worse. It's fucking crazy. Now, Hattie, his wife, because the doctor talked to his wife and said, are you scared of him at all? And she said, no, not at all.

She said, I'm not scared of him for myself. I'm not scared for my children. I'm not scared for anybody here at this point. I got Florence and Joe at the house. They're doing great. So in November, the doctor visited the farm again to attend to Hattie cause she's got tuberculosis and he found her lying on the couch and coughing up blood. Yeah, longer. Martin was wringing his hands in anguish.

Quote, the sight of blood drives me crazy. He said, yes the sight of your wife coughing it up is even worse. No good. Sunday, January 14th, Bergen visited Dion's office to pick up medicine for Hattie. Dion inquired about his health, and Bergen said that he visited a doctor in Kansas City during the summer.

So curious about Bergen's memory, because a lot of times mental illness will fuck up your memory and everything too. Sure. Dion asked him what route he had traveled west, and Bergen said he didn't know, he didn't recall. Doesn't know what way he went home. He said he did remember playing baseball

in St. Joseph, Missouri, but that was it. As he left, he said, it's been a very pleasant talk, and yet it's strange how it has rattled me. I'm almost crazy. And then he walked out. I think you're certainly... Beyond crazy, yeah. If crazy is a certain hill, you've got over it.

Yeah. Like, four days later, here, on January 18th, it's a Thursday, Marty got up early, helped his father with the chores, and cooked breakfast for his family. He ordered $25 worth of groceries from Boston the day before, but had no sleigh with which to fetch the shit from town, so he stopped at Mrs. Daniel Collins' farm and asked to borrow hers. She saw him walking his horse and harness onto her place, his two kids in

tow, and she said, hello, here comes farmer Bergen, and they said that the people around there, they said he was always nice. They never were, he never did this shit to his neighbors that he did with teammates. They said they never saw that side of him. So to them he's just a nice guy. And Bergen laughed and said, what kind of farmer do you think I make Mrs. Collins? And she said, I think you make a very good farmer, Mr. Bergen. And he shook his head and laughed and said, I don't think I'll ever make a good farmer laughingly. You know, too snowed lady, self-deprecating though. You know, nice. He hitched the horse to the sleigh and set out with his father for town, leaving the

kids behind with this lady. Mind if I borrow your sleigh and set out with his father for town, leaving the kids behind with the sleigh. Mind if I borrow your sleigh and leave my kids for a while? No problem. Hang on to these for me. Try that now. Go to your next door neighbor and go, hey, can I borrow your car and just leave your kids here for a while? I'll be back in a couple hours. Keep an eye on my kids. I'll see you around. Fuck you. No. I'll be back when I'm done with your sleigh.

So he does that. Once he goes, they go to the drug store. Martin ran into his doctor to whom he apologized for not having filled the prescription the doctor had given him on Sunday. He said that, I've only just gotten around to it, is what Bergen told the doctor. And yeah, so they said the papers had been abuzz with trade talk involving Bergen told the doctor. And yeah, so they said the papers had been abuzz with trade talk involving Bergen. So one man in Reeds asked him, are you going to be playing ball, Martin? And he said, no, I'll never play another game of ball. That's what he said, the guy.

He's done. He's done. So Michael Bergen, I guess it's a father, stayed in town while Martin drove back to Mrs. Collins place where he picked up Florence and Joe and returned to his farm without his groceries, which had not arrived that he went to pick up, the whole reason for going. So now he's not getting along. By January 1900, he's not getting along with his father, Michael. His father, Michael, is a big drinker, and that's always been a source of tension between them, and they don't get along at all. So on the night of January 18th when Michael was supposed to start living with the family on the farm, he came to the door and Hattie wouldn't let him in the house because he was

drunk. He was too drunk. She said, you're not coming in here all drunk around the kids. You're drunk and my husband's crazy. A fight ensued. And at one point Hattie hid a shotgun under the sheets of their bed in the same room where the two kids slept in case there was trouble. She could fucking blast. So at some point the Bergen family ate a

hearty meal and turned in. Okay so at some point the tension subsided they ate a meal everybody went to bed. Next day now, January 19th, so there's been tension, 1900. Martin again gets up super early, you know, five o'clock in the morning. And we think he maybe, we don't know exactly what he did here, but he'd slept till about 5.30 is what we're figuring. He then rushed out of the shed, he went into the shed,

came out of the shed holding an axe. At this point, he is hallucinating, we think. He's completely psychotic. Nothing has happened with his family, but he thinks that there's things happening. He then heads to the bedroom where his wife and kids are sleeping. And he's got the holding

an axe over Hattie as she sleeps. He then fucking took the axe and chopped her in the left side of her head. What? Crushing her forehead and killing her instantly. Why? Full force. No idea. Bam.

Fucking axe on her, crushing her shit. She fell on the bed with her arms still raised above her head as if saying please don't do this because she was doing what are you doing so Florence and Joe the two kids ran screaming out of the room as you would do so Martin chased after them. Oh boy. He swung the axe at his son, hitting him in the top of the head with it, severing off the crown of his skull. Oh boy. Chopped the top of his head off, then picked up the body outside the bedroom door and threw it into the bedroom. Just tossed him into the bedroom on the floor. Oh my god. Florence had been, poor little Florence,

the kid's like four, by the way. Yeah, little kid. Then a six-year-old Florence here, hiding behind a kitchen chair, but Marty saw her, he found her, and he went after her. This is The Shining, is exactly what this fucking is right now, he has lost his fucking mind, and by the way, Jimmy has seen The Shining now.

I saw it. So this is The Shining. I don't get it, but I see it. Wow. This is, I mean, exactly what't get it, but I see it. Wow. This is, I mean, exactly what it is. It's a guy chasing his family around with a fucking axe. And just axing him to death. Axing him to death.

He saw his daughter and went after her, missed her once with the axe, breaking off a piece on the wooden chair, or breaking off a piece of the wooden chair, then ended up, she gets trapped in front of the stove, and he swings it and kills her with a blow to the head in front of the stove and he swings it and kills her with a blow to the head in front of the stove. So his whole family is dead.

So he heads off and there's a kitchen shelf and he grabs his straight razor off the kitchen shelf. He's looking in the mirror, in the bathroom, and cuts his throne throat. What? With such force that he cut his own head half off. Wow! I mean, he fucking, it wasn't a little bit, there's no hesitation marks, he just went,

full force with a fucking straight razor, trying to cut his own head off. The razor fell on a table by the sink, and he died next to Florence on the kitchen floor. What the shit! Unexpected, right? Holy! This is fucking mental illness. I mean, we saw it. We saw it getting worse and worse and worse and worse and worse until now. Nobody said anything. They just wanted nothing to do with him until he isolates himself and takes his whole family. F***ing crazy. So later that morning, Dad, Michael, he was sleeping in the barn. He went to the house,

tried to get in the front door but it's locked. Yeah, well the front door is locked so he heard no movements inside. So he went to the neighbor's house and told her that the house is usually a lot of activity. There's two kids and all this s shit going on. It's silent in there and the curtains are all drawn. And Miss Collins said, go back and milk the cows and try to get into the house. So near noon, Michael let himself in through the shed. And that's when he saw the carnage by the stove. So the next day in the newspaper, whole family killed. Martin Bergen murders his wife and two children. He then nearly severed his own head with a razor. Savage blows had been rained upon victims with an axe, but little doubt that the unfortunate man had long been insane.

He is angry and nuts. He is fucking crazy. This might be the craziest fuck we've ever had in crime and sports. Unbelievable. We've had a lot of crazy people. Martin Bergen, well known as the catcher of the Boston baseball team, killed his wife and two children, then himself at his home in North Brookfield yesterday. It's believed that the crime was due to his insanity. It has been suspected for some time that Martin was a victim of mental derangement. His conduct and connection with his professional contracts and manager last season led up to

the supposition at that time. The horrible discovery was first made by Michael Bergen, the father of Martin, who was staying at the house of a neighbor about a half mile from the scene of the murder. Mr. Bergen went to his son's house about 8 in the morning on Friday, but finding the curtains drawn, no signs of life, went back away without making an attempt to arouse. Man, that is wild. So about noon he returned to the house, finding everything in the same condition when he left earlier in the day and tried the door. So then he did enter the house. As he passed in a terrible sight greeted his eyes, Martin Bergen's body

and that of the little girl Florence, six and a half years old, were lying on the kitchen floor while the adjoining bedroom were the bodies of Mrs. Bergen and her three-year-old son Joseph. Mrs. Bergen was lying on the bed with her feet hanging over the side while her hands were raised as though in supplication or trying to ward off a blow. A little boy was lying on the floor with his brains oozing from a large wound in the head. He's got no cap to his head. He's like a he's like a pumpkin right now, like a jack-o-lantern that you cut the fucking top of the head off. He's an Ed Gein bowl.

Fuck, yeah, exactly. Mrs. Bergen's skull was terribly crushed, having evidently been struck more than one blow by the infuriated husband. Seems like she was the source of the target of the whole thing here. The appearance of the little girl also showed that a number of savage blows had been rained upon the top and side of her head.

Bergen's throat had been cut with a razor and the head was nearly severed from the body. Why didn't you just do that in the first place? Fuck, that's what I'm saying. Exactly. Mr. Bergen spread the alarm as quickly as possible and the medical examiner, Norwood, and the local authorities were soon on the ground The bedroom in the bedroom was found an axe Besmeared with blood which was evidently the weapon which with which the murders were committed

The ashes had been cleared out of the stove the paper placed in position for lighting But the kindling had not been put in the beds in the house bore evidence of having been slept in Thursday night as usual. There were signs of warmth in the bodies of Mrs. Bergen and her husband when found, and all the circumstances seemed to indicate the murders had been committed but a short time before the elder Bergen had paid his first visit to the house. The medical examiner, after a careful examination of the bodies, expressed his opinion that the murders were committed by Martin Bergen and that the latter was without a doubt insane. Gee, you can see all this and go he's insane?

No shit. I'm going on a limb here. I can look at the scene and go crazy fuck did this, right? This motherfucker must have been nuts, man. He thought Mrs. Bergen was the first victim, that the boy and then the girl next received their fatal blows, and that after that he had slain all the rest of his family. Bergen stood before the looking glass with a razor, nearly severed his head from his body, reeled around and fell lifeless to the floor.

A chair that stood near the spot where the little girl lay had a large piece broken from it and had the appearance of having been struck with a heavy blow from an axe, probably a blow that had been intended for the unfortunate victim. In view of all the facts ascertained, the medical examiner said that there would be no necessity for holding an autopsy. Well, he's got no top of his head. So that's why he's dead. Yeah. These two had a heart attack, crushed skulls will say so fuck it Mrs. Bergen the murdered woman was 31 years of age and mrs. Harriet Gaines of Pittsfield married Martin Bergen about seven years ago Skip by that mrs. Ingram said mrs. Bergen was a very nice woman She said that while Burton Martin was waiting upon her she invited him to come to the house whenever he pleased

But he came there only once. They were married by Reverend Father Tweeg in Worcester, and while the latter was there, in his retreat at Holy Cross College. After their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Bergen boarded with her for some time. Bergen was fussy and continually finding fault, and has continued to do this after they began keeping a house on a little farm called the snowball farm Martin had frequently called upon mrs. Ingram It was at her house only about four weeks ago at that time when asked about how matters were going at home

Mrs. Bergen replied lovely but mrs. Ingram said that she surmised that the time that everything was not pleasant and That as mrs. Bergen would have her believe. Well, yeah, the guys ended up killing people. Martin Bergen at times had been subject to fits of melancholy and his actions had been the subject of comment among his friends and associates. This was noticeable in the last case October when he showed signs of insanity and Father Tadier was called to see him.

Okay, so that's all fucked up. My Christ. That is fucked up, man. I'll tell you that right now. He just snapped, killed the whole family, and then himself. His dad's lucky he wasn't in the fucking house. No shit. So, I mean, that's interesting, but if you want a cure for another medical thing,

we have it right here. Causes of loss of hair, it says. Oh, tell me all about it. Tell you, let's find out. Let's get you some hair back, Jimmy. Dr. Sabarod, the eminent French dermatologist, says that 98% of hair losses are the results of microbes Oh. and the neglect of dandruff. Oh.

Jimmy, you're just letting your dandruff settle. That's the problem. I just got a dry head and microbes. You just needed a little head and shoulders and you'd have been fine. This is fucking microbes and letting your dandruff settle. That doesn't, I don't think, I think genetics. I got a dry scalp, James. Wow. And microbes.

Microbes, the antiseptic, antiseptic action of seven Sutherland sisters' preparations kills microbes and removes dandruff. Microbes. You can't see them, but they're there. They're in there. They're constant use for a period, will, by acting directly on the hair bulbs, furnished nourishment, vitality, and growing power to the impoverished roots and hair shafts resulting in complete restoration. The shafts, yeah. Shafts, fix my shafts, would ya? Make my shafts better. Oh my god, this is fucking funny, man.

And then they talk about here, somebody tells a story of the murder here. This is from the Buffalo Times. As near as the circumstances indicate, Martin rose this morning around 5.30, dressed himself in his shirt, trousers, vest, and stockings, and went out to the kitchen. The paper and wood had been arranged in the stove the night before. Evidently, the fire in Martin's room had been similarly prepared to light. So he's got the fires ready.

You have fireplaces, you know you set them up and get them ready and you just have to light them. So he said that Martin for several weeks had been doing most of the housework but did not perform any of these tasks this morning. Apparently he went immediately about the deadly work for which his deranged mind had pointed out before his arising. As he came into the kitchen, evidently the little ones, with their usual affection for their parent, ran out of their bedroom in their night clothes to say good morning. The little girl Florence apparently seated herself

in the chair just behind the stove. The axe was standing behind the stove, a common long-handled implement. The father grasped it and swung down with cruel force upon the innocent head with the face turned up to him. The blunt end struck the top of the fragile skull. Another blow on the side and the little form toppled over onto the floor. There may have been even one or two more fierce strokes for the head of the little girl was crushed into almost unrecognizable shape. So now they're saying they think that he was doing housework, Hattie was still in bed, kids came out, killed the kids out there, then went and killed Hattie, then went and

killed himself, they're thinking now. The little boy Joseph was not out as early as his sister, for he obviously was struck as soon as he ran out of the bedroom to the kitchen. Not only an ugly spot on the floor of the kitchen near the bedroom door tells where the murderous work had been done upon his little head, it could not seem as if the distracted man could have paused, but after killing the girl had stepped over toward the bedroom to meet the little boy almost at the door. One blow was all that was necessary probably to slay this little one, but it was of such

force to make the head of an even worse sight than that of the girl. The blood fell near the door and the absolute irresponsibility of Martin Bergen is shown in what he did at this moment. I said, catching up to the mutilated, catching up to the mutilated body from which the life was only a minute extinguished, the father heartlessly threw the little form into the bedroom where it struck the floor and rolled partially under the bed. Just tossed him in there like a sack of leaves. Wow.

Here it met the eyes of the mother who was just arising. Long before this horrible sight was forced upon her, Mr. Bergen undoubtedly realized what her infuriated husband was doing, but she had no time to escape, even if she had possessed the strength. Hardly had the body of the youngest been rudely hurled into the room before the father was at her beside her with the gory weapon. The wife was just getting out of bed and was sitting with her feet upon the floor when the axe descended.

It would seem that she raised her hands in supplication, for they were in that position when the authorities entered the room. She raised her head to meet the blow of the axe full on at the forehead, and then she knew no more. But the murderer was not done. Four times he brought the steel down upon her skull with powerful impact, crushing the skull. Even this failed to satisfy the demon that commanded all the strength of his athletic

body, for the blade of the axe descended upon the side of the head as the body lay on the bed, cutting a deep gash over the left ear. There only remained himself. Martin Bergen deliberately performed the last act. There was the cunning, the almost calm method of the maniac, in what he did then. Walking around the bed by the side of the mangled body of his wife, I assume there's footprints you can see in the blood, and almost stepping over the mishapen mass that had been his idolized son, Martin stepped

up to the small shelf on the wall where his razor was. He took out the blade, carefully closed it, and put the case back in its place and stepped out into the kitchen to the mirror. The mirror is hung over the sink near the door leading to the shed and just opposite of the stove, in front of which the body of Florence lay. Bergen stood up before the glass to see that he made no weak and unsuccessful effort. With a firm hand, he grasped the razor for the one stroke that should accomplish his end. Throwing back his head and making sure that the steel would rupture the jugular vein, he made sure.

He opened it up. He drew it viciously across his throat. The strength of no ordinary man was in that stroke for the blade cut through the muscles, tissues, and veins severing the larynx and coming within four inches of complete decapitation. There was no doubt the position of Bergen when he slashed his own throat on the mirror, in the sink and on the table, on the drawn curtains and even on the wainscotting of the wall were splatterings of red which showed the copious hemorrhage from which followed. He had strength enough to lay the razor unsheathed on the table by the sink and then he fell over on his face in the middle of the room did somebody

kill him I mean how do you cut your head nearly off of your body and then calmly placed the razor on a table yeah what does dad do this did his fucking dad do this his dad kill everybody is do this? Did his dad kill everybody? Did he kill everybody and... Is he so fucking crazy that his dad said I could do this and everyone will just say he's crazy? Because that's... That doesn't seem like... You'd have to... You can't set it down after that.

I don't know how he set it on the table by the sink and then he fell over on his face in the middle of the room. If you laid it back and opened it. You're just falling down man. It's going to go, you're not going to be like, hold on, let me put this over here. I'm going to clean up. You're just going to fall and you're going to fall and you might throw it. You may not fall. It may take a while.

How do you get your own head four inches from decapitation? Right. That's the other thing. This seems impossible. Once you cut the once you cut the jugular, you don't have a lot going on for you in terms. It's gonna spray out. I don't know how you.

And your brain's coming, I mean it's gonna be losing blood fast. This is fucking crazy. That is, I don't, okay. He had fallen perhaps involuntarily and yet possibly by design so that he lay beside the body of his favorite child, the daughter Florence. His arm was almost extended over the little body.

Thus was brought the horrible havoc in what had been a happy little family. They said in actuality the razor likely would not have been enough to sever through the ligaments to go deep enough to sever his head, but it would have created a lot of blood from slicing the vein of the jugular and carotid artery, making it appear his head had been nearly severed from his body. Wow. Everybody's dead. Everybody's dead, and it's pretty crazy.

They're gonna have, obviously, a funeral here and all this type of thing, and they're waiting at the funeral home. They're gonna have it at the house. They do do these at the house they're gonna have it in the living room and uh they hear a knock at the door and it's paul calhoun shitpipe enthusiast he's there to give the eulogy isn't that amazing he's gonna throw up i'm sure he's seen some shit wait till he sees this it's gross in and pipes. He's forget about it. He's seen worse and he says How is it you come to arrive here what the he's fucking dead. Yeah. All right. Well, I guess all right

Okay, I prepared some remarks here for you Here lies a man and his family a man will talk about here. He he didn't understand what I was getting that I Said clean your shit pipes and smack your wife I didn't say take an axe and fucking hit your wife five times in the head with it I think he misunderstood my my good humor you know, thing I got going. It's a rhyme, you know what I mean? I don't mean it or nothing. And this guy, I think he went off the deep end a little bit. I'm exaggerating, you know, it's humor, you know what I mean? He, he, ha, ha, you know? He killed kids and, Jesus Christ, this is fucking

dark, isn't it? I don't know, what am I doing here? This is crazy. They don't need any plumbing. I'm going to get the fuck out of here because... What are the caskets already? There's still child brain on the floor. So this is fucking weird I don't even know why I'm here, but everybody coming you need new Wayne's coating Me new way to go. Don't flush those flushable wipes cuz trust me. They ain't flushable number one I'll leave you with that and then I'll leave you with You know call me for all your shit pipe needs. Thank you very much everybody. And they clap and that's there he goes. That's Paul Calhoun.

He's gone. But he got a very famous obituary, which is very nice. What a, what the fuck man. So here is some reminiscing. This is from January 20th, 1900. So a day later, the Kansas City Times said, Martin was of an erratic disposition and several times last summer disappeared from the team without notifying his manager or other players.

Once he went home to North Brookfield and refused to play alleging that he was not treated well by his fellow players. Now all these stories of him being crazy start to come out. Which is interesting. Yeah. The owner of Boston said while Bergen was with the team, we were always fearful lest Martin should commit some rash act. I have personally been of the opinion for some time that he was not of sane mind. He acted queerly while at home and while on the road. That's his business what he's doing at home. He

could be sucking all the dicks he wants in his house leaving alone. Yeah that's what I mean. He's got to draw the closed, and that's that. And when he was on the road, he was worse. He was despondent, and at times would stay away from his fellow members of the team. So yeah, basically it's everybody going, I knew he was fucking crazy. Yeah, it's one of those,

everybody knew, but nobody said anything. Yeah, who said, I knew it, but I mean, whatever. I knew it was coming. Manager Manning here said, I have seen many ballplayers who are hard to handle, but Bergen was the hardest of them all. You could never tell what he was gonna do, and consequently, the director of the club

always felt uneasy about him. If he took a notion not to play or to stay at home while the club went on a trip, there was no way of persuading him to change his mind, and the only thing to do was to put up with his strange actions. While he was with the Blues, he did not make any trouble in the sense that he caused an outbreak, but he had me and the players anxious for fear he would take a queer notion in his head.

They're so afraid of... I'm going to take a queer notion and put his dick in my ear. Listen, pal. A notion that his head at some inappropriate time. We all tried to make things as pleasant as we could for him and we realized his great value as a ball player, but he was a melancholy subject. Kid Nichols said, quote, I'm afraid, this was a while ago, I'm afraid that Marty has seen his best days. His disposition has been so unruly for the past year that it has been almost impossible to depend on him

and quite impossible to do anything with him. So, that said, you need to restore your manhood because I got something for you here. I mean, my hair's almost back. We're going to get your hair back. We're going to get you all your tobacco. Heart's going to be gone. It's going to be great.

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I think they mean wet dreams, but if you just make it happen once in a while, that's probably lost. Yeah, open up the gates and you won't be all backed up. You gotta clean out the pipes every once in a while or else you're gonna get some sludge in there. Yeah. Loss of memory, all wasting diseases, all effects of self abuse or excess and indiscretion. That's jerking off self abuse by the way. So make your dick hard, make you stop having wet dreams or make you stop jerking it all the time. Either one. Any of those things bothering you? Can't get

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I got a, I got a tiny appendix. Underdevelopers. Sure. Maybe it's not a paresis. Oh, okay. Um, that's okay. Uh, locomotor ataxia, locomotor, locomotor ataxia, nervous prostration, hysteria fits insanity, and the results

of excessive use of tobacco, opium, or liquor. All three of those are so different, but this cures it all. This is like... Wow. This is great. Not only that, it's guaranteed to cure everything in 30 days. 30 days? A month. They'll take care of every problem.

Your dick is going to be big and you'll be able to hold it in your pants until an appropriate time. And not addicted to a single substance. Oh God no, no you'll be fine. Opium, cure ya, booze. There's an article a little while later that says less than eight years had passed since the most infamous axe murders in US history, the hacking to death of Lizzie Borden's parents in Fall River Massachusetts. That was only a few years before this.

And we've never heard of this. Never heard of it. The Martin, the Bergen murder-suicide would not achieve such long-lasting notoriety, but the story involving one of the most famous ballplayers of the day, which is crazy because we never even heard of him, was strung in black in the headlines of newspapers nationwide among the latest dispatches from the Boer War, which was going on at that time. The horror of what took place on Snowball Farm not only plunged the little town of North Brookfield into mourning, but also fetched slaves with bells ringing from around the countryside.

Hundreds of people, some of them riding in horse-drawn taxi from town, gathered around the Bergen house and peered ghoulishly through the windows as doctors, policemen, and the coroner and the undertaker moved around the bodies trying to piece together what happened. Not long after it happened, directly after. Directly. This was the Ed Gain farm and this was in the 50s looking in the windows They were standing on each other's shoulders looking in fucking windows It was a crazy thing hundreds of people gathered to try to see the corpses and see them unbury them guy

People's made human pyramids to see over shit. It's crazy What the fuck is wrong with us? We used to just be so disrespectful of that shit now Wow Thankfully like societally now we're like let you fucking scumbag be a decent to let those motherfuckers breathe There's a child with his head open get out of here back then like if somebody got two strands of hair of one of the victims They'd sell it and shit. Nobody gave a fuck. It was crazy. It was crazy. So they did that.

The next day in a steady rain, the bodies were taken in three hearses to the church in North Brookfield where 800 mourners gathered inside to hear the service. At least that many stood outside. Only two baseball people showed up at his funeral. Two. Which is crazy because he was playing a fucking year ago. Connie Mack is number one. Connie Mack was of the Milwaukee team at this point. He's a big time guy. And sliding Billy Hamilton who was Bergen's roommate on the road. I was going to say, 100 hitting brother. Yeah, 170 brother.

Jesse Burkett said, quote, what a state of mind he must have been in. This is one of the Boston teammates that he had. He said that, holy shit, that's crazy. They had avoided him in life and not attended his funeral after his death. A number of them pleaded that they had mistakenly thought the service was on Sunday No, we fucked up. I thought it was tomorrow and Sealy the manager did send flowers though. That's nice. The burial was in a single broad grave They just buried everybody together one big hole. Oh my god in st. Joseph's Cemetery

Bergen's good friend th Murn. Murnane, the writer and former ballplayer who had visited him at the farm six months earlier and found him standing and smiling with his two children in the barn doorway, sent 28 white flowers with a background of ferns and a note that said, May these flowers speak a word of charity for Martin Bergen, who has done this insane deed. No kidding. He couldn't help it. The flowers were lying on Bergen's

casket as the funeral train wound up the hill to the cemetery. So the January 21st, 1990, there's still it's all anybody can talk about. And 1890. Yeah, that's all in the or 1899. So it's 1900. He says that they're talking about it at all. One local baseball guy said, quote, I was never so surprised in all my life as when I read of Marty Bergen's awful deed. I knew the great catcher quite well, and he is the last man in the world I would have picked out for suicide.

No kidding. I think because he was so paranoid about everybody else. I wonder if he even did it. That's what I mean. It's fucking crazy, but he's so crazy you don't know. Yeah, you can't tell. I knew he loved his wife and children to distraction, like he would leave because he wanted to be home with them.

It doesn't make sense. He was always talking about them. And when the least little thing went wrong down home, Marty would leave his club without a moment's warning and rush down to Worcester. I believe he would have left the game in the middle of an inning to go home. This erratic propensity on his part has often left the Boston club in a hole and it got such a source of annoyance that not only the club management

but his fellow players got to kicking. This habit was especially disastrous to Boston on account of the fact the team had but two other catchers, both of whom were of an inferior stripe. So last season Bergens, shall I call it mania? Well his mania got so bad that he left the club in Philadelphia one day and didn't report again for a long time. There was much talk of releasing him. One guy said they settled the trouble some way, however, and Marty promised to reform. He played the season out and ever maintained his high standard of perfection behind the

bat. In addition to his actions with reference to the club, it was said that with growing morbid and despondentness at times, he acted queerly. They love saying that. His domestic affairs seemed to prey on his mind, and although I do not know the immediate circumstances that led to this terrible crime. Dude, to me, I don't know if it's like also, he's so fucking crazy, and then his son dying

really pushed him over the edge, and just he couldn't get it together anymore. Why the family? I don't know, that's crazy. That's why he told the doctor, I'm seeing shit, I don't know what I'm doing That was the day before so Wow, they said it's certainly too bad that the game loses such a star as Bergen

He was without a doubt the greatest throwing catcher in the business while he did not originate So many Foxy plays as Mike Kelly. He was as equal in every way and is in many good respects was his superior Man that is fucking crazy. So here's another question I have for you. Can you have too much Johnson? Because this, let's find out from this ad here. Possibly. Margaret Theater, Anaconda, one night, January 24th,

the greatest of all comedies, too much Johnson. Is that right? It's too much cock leaking, it's falling out down the pants leg, dragging on the floor. Real Anaconda, yeah. Real Anaconda, exactly, I love that. Anaconda by William Gillette, author of Secret Service and Sherlock Holmes, held by the enemy private secretary, etc. 300 nights in New York, 100 nights in Boston, 200 nights in London.

Too Much Johnson. Every ladies problem here. $1.75, $0.50, and $0.35 to see this. Also- Is it a movie? No, no. There's no movies back then. It's 1900.

It's just a guy with too big of a dick? It's a play. I don't know what it's about. Too much Johnson, maybe. I have no fucking clue. Could be. I doubted back then, but maybe. Also tapeworms?

Any tapeworm problems? Just the one. Okay. A tapeworm 18 feet long at least came on the scene, at least came on the scene after my taking two cassarets. This guy took this and shit out an 18 foot long tapeworm. 18 foot! 18 foot long tapeworm. 18 foot!

18 foot long tapeworm. Oh my god, it won't stop! What the fuck. This I'm sure has cured my bad health for the past three years. I'm still taking cascarettes, the only cathartic worthy of notice by sensible people. Yeah, if an 18 foot worm comes out of your asshole, I'm sure it's going to fix your health problem. I would think, I would think that's probably causing some kind of problem in there. I'm sure it's taking it three years to grow that fucking big 18 feet.

And they call it a candy cathartic and say it regulates the liver, pleasant, palatable, potent, tastes good, do taste good taste good do good never sicken weaken or gripe Ten cents twenty five cents fifty cents, I guess for different packages eighteen foot tapeworm out of your ass Wow So here by the way, here is a picture of not the tape a drawn picture of Hattie So nice looking older Victorian looking lady here and it says tragedy on the heels of romance. Marty Bergen's wife tremblingly forecast the end that proved a shock to all of fandom. So they're saying that she knew he was crazy is the essential drift of this. They said she was Hattie Gaines and the early years of their married life were happy ones. To a few initiate or intimate friends, however, in latter days,

she confessed to harboring the dread that her husband was losing his mind. For hours he would sit silent and moody. The terrible fate that she pictured might be hers proved a reality and on the heels of romance came tragedy, but he she told the doctor a few months before she didn't fear him at all So the doctor asked her do you fear him do we need to put him in a home and she said no, he's fine So the doctor repeatedly made comments that Bergen was insane and a maniac The doctor believed that the situation was out of his control and out of his purview finally acknowledging Bergen's mental illness,

the Boston Globes' Tim Murnane wrote that Bergen was entitled to all the undivided sympathy to the baseball, of the baseball public, as well as players and directors. In the wake of the tragedy, North Brookfield made efforts to better educate professionals and the community about mental health issues. Then, the death of Bergen prevented him

from ever playing against his brother Bill, who was also a major league catcher for the Cincinnati Reds and Brooklyn Superbas from 1901 to 1911. He came in the next year. Several years after the murder-suicide, Bill reminisced to a reporter about his brother, quote, it was as if he was possessed.

The demons got to him and never let him go. Holy. Jesus, that is very sad. quote, it was as if he was possessed. The demons got to him and never let him go. Jesus, that is very sad. I mean, you, you gotta feel bad. Obviously the kids, but I mean, you gotta kind of feel bad for the guy who can't control it. He's his whole family mentally fucking. And before that trying to keep it together on the road and do all that. It's fucking not easy. I mean, I feel bad for him, them, all these people, Jimmy, but not nearly as bad

as I feel for Martin Bergen, creative, professional, motion design, art direction, storytelling, and I will say looks exactly like you. Is that right? And I'm not talking just, I know the people post beard and it's the reason, the problem is it's your fault. Because everyone on earth looks has the exact same face as you now. So you can you can change it or look like every other person on earth. That's up to you. If I shaved this, I still look like way too many people. No, you don't. You look like everybody now. The beard is the man bun of twenty twenty four.

That's what it is. No, I can't. Every single guy, any hair. So I look like anybody that has stubble and bald. Which is every man over 40. 97% of men over 40 in the United States look exactly like you. So this isn't your fault. I'm just saying. But this is what he looks like, Jimmy. Holy shit. Yeah. He really looks like you. Like honestly, like in the face, in the face and everything, not just a beard and bald. It looks like you, like honestly, like in the face, in the face and everything, not just a beard and all, it looks like you.

He's a creative professional in Stockholm, Sweden. So you look like a Swedish man. That's cool. Maybe that's, maybe that's what real Stockholm syndrome is. Everyone looks the same. What else we got? Oh, Martin Bergen, bachelor student in Germany. Yeah, there we go. A bachelor student in Germany. And we also have Martin Bergen who doped the nags.

What does he do? Jockey Martin Bergen put on the defense. He was a jockey. He put drugs in the horse? Yeah, this is the same time of our Martin Bergen. Oh, wow. So that's fun in the papers, they're looking for him. It says, latest turf scandal, Martin Bergen the jockey to recover $3298 for services rendered between 1894 and 1896. The summons was served as Bergen was about to start for San Francisco.

Dr. Buckley alleges that in May 1894 the defendant engaged him as a trainer promising to quote, fix him all right and pay for his board and lodging and traveling expenses. He asserted that Bergen owned several running horses and as under the rules of jockey club, a jockey has an actual mount, cannot own horses. They were run in Buckley's name. It is alleged that Bergen induced him to stimulate his horses with drugs, which if proved would rule the jockey off every track

in the country. Dr. Buckley says that all he received from Bergen was $92 in cash. So he's suing this Martin Bergen to get back $3,300 for all the drugs he gave him for the horses is what this is. He only got $92 total. And also Martin Bergen, Marty A. Bergen, a bridge player. He's an American, the card game I guess, American bridge teacher, writer, and player, a ten-time national champion, an American contract bridge league grand

life master, retired from active competition in 1993. I didn't know there was active bridge competition. I'm in bridge club I guess there's probably a league for it. He's been a columnist for the monthly ACBL bridge bulletin since 1976 and has written 69 books on bridge. Sixty-nine? What do you... I don't know. What do you get after book four? I don't even know what bridge is. I don't know the game. I know it's a card game but I don't know what the fight is here in old sitcoms when we were kids. Old people were playing bridge tonight with the neighbors. Yeah that's I didn't know. I never said that. it's a slow game, right? And then February 12th

1900 this is less than a month after this happened now. There's articles going. Hey, he wasn't that good. Anyway, what which is fucking hilarious By many Marty Bergen who murdered his wife and two children and then cut his own throat in Boston the other day was regarded as the Starcatcher of the National League this fact was disputed by some, but taking to all the departments of the game into consideration, he was head and shoulders over the majority of backstops. He was not in the class with such men as Buck Ewing and Mike Kelly. Oh well, Buck Ewing is there, I mean obviously. We can't compete with Buck Ewing now, I mean fuck. But as a purely mechanical catcher, he had few superiors.

Bergen was credited with a good baseball head, but authorities differ in this. He had, however, a good throwing arm and was a terror to base dealers. With long or low covering second, and with Bergen behind the bat, the swiftest base runners in the league had a hard time getting around the bases.

So they talk about that, but he's not that great. He just fucking, he went crazy. He's a lot of people said he was flawed and they talk about all this type of shit. Talk about him being sour and morose. And even if he was a good player, he brought down the club and all that kind of shit. February 18th, 1900, a story in the Chicago inter ocean, which is a newspaper in the form of an interview with a veteran ballplayer States that while Martin Bergen the Boston catcher was queer mentally. Yeah, he was rendered actually insane by fines What does that mean?

They find him too much and he went insane. So Rashid Wallace should be fucking killing everybody right now This would be a menace. Yeah, just a menace. Every school shooting. Is it Rashid again? Where is he? Somebody catch him. Fuck. His salary, says the story, was $2,000 a year, not $2,400 a year, as supposed.

And for leaving the club at times and seeking solitude, he was fined in the season $1,500 in sums of $500 and more in smaller sums, making his income a trifle over $300. Oh my God. I'm saying he was so poor from his fines. He goes, wow, that is fucking amazing. March 31st, 1900, now they're going back, oh, what could we have done? They go, well, he was well treated. Yeah, his manager in Boston said that Martin was fined only three times while a member

of the Boston club. That should set aside the stories that, you know, he went crazy because he was unjustly fined here. They said on two occasions he was fined $25 and for another offense, three days pay was withheld from him. From what other clubs would from one other club? Would the unfortunate Bergen have received so much consideration. We were fucking nice to him. This isn't our fault Is what they're trying to say here Berger received a few Hall of Fame votes actually really?

1937 to 1939 when the hall first came about but not nearly enough to be elected. Sports writer Joe Pazanoski mentioned this when he argued that the Hall of Fame needs to strike the character clause from his membership requirements because they were like he killed his wife and kids and cut his head off. What are we talking about? And he said as a catcher, Martin Bergen was the best the world ever produced. No man acted with more natural grace as a ballplayer. There was a finish in every move he made. His eye was always true and his movement so quick and accurate and throwing that the speediest

base runners never took chances when Bergen was behind the bat. And that's a future Hall of Fame or a St. Louis outfielder that said that, but he never made it to the Hall of Fame. No, of course not. That's that. He is buried here, looks like in the North Brookfield, the St. Joseph Cemetery in North Brookfield, is where him and his Hall family

are dumped into a fucking hole. Yeah. But there is just his headstone. They didn't put the rest of the family on it. Just says, in memory of Martin Bergen. What the fuck? And there's a baseball in front of it. Now,'t know if that's a that looks like a fairly new headstone it's like headstones that are from back then there's cemeteries around

here that have they don't look like that I feel like some baseball person put that on so I'm getting that guy a headstone yeah but they didn't put his family on it maybe when they know who's in there and they know their names but I was gonna what if they couldn't read the rest of them they just put that one on yeah they just stuck it up there man it's crazy that all his headstone shit he will put a new one up and here's a picture of him looking kind of crazy yeah yeah he looks a little not he looks a little nuts. He looks a little nuts right? He looks a little crockin crazy. So can't get enough of bat shit Marty. Here we go we got some more for you. Get yourself a Boston Bean Eaters Martin Bergen 1899 photo. What? Check him out he's

got the hair combed. He's got the real photo. It's all tied up like instead of your like a polo shirt having buttons it's all strings. It's all tied up. Like instead of your like a polo shirt, having buttons, it's all strings. It's a hockey jersey, but the, but the, the lace is a real high. It is. It's crazy. So this is a $12 or a Martin Bergen, Boston, 1900 centennial Miller press, which is a little color like little reproduction of a color, like a baseball card to his. And that is $4 and five cents. His number really is

mad, mad cheap. Yeah we got to get some of this shit to put up in the office but there you go everybody that! Holy! There's some crazy old-timey shit. So people have always been crazy, number one. An axe murderer. He's a fucking crazy axe murderer, we think. I hope he, that's him, I hope somebody didn't do that to him. In the annals of time that's what he's labeled as but it could be something else. Maybe his brother did it so he could get like all the baseball attention. Who knows? But either way if you have a theory or if you like the story or like anything we do, let everybody know. Get on whatever app you're listening on and give five stars. Also tell all your friends,

post about it on social media. It really helps. Speaking of social media, you should follow us on there at Crime and Sports, wherever you fucking do things. So follow us there. Keep hanging out with us. Head over to shutupandgivemurder.com. Tickets for live shows, baby. Merchandise, live shows. Small Town Murder is in Kansas City, October 18th. And also, also damn it the virtual live show October 30th be there for that. That's going to be a shitload of fun. We have awesome sports related costumes. So you're going to enjoy that. You can start guessing on who they are. It's a it's two that go together. We'll just say that. So check that out. Shut up and give me murder com there. And in addition to that, you certainly want the virtual live show, like you said, get

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We're not we're not parsing keeping the shit separate you get it all this week, but we're gonna give you for crime and sports We're gonna do Florida State 1993 football team who won the national championship and was just absolutely drowning in scandal very fucking fun. Champions who don't deserve it. Then for Small Town Murder we're gonna talk about the 1976 Ted Bundy psychological evaluation. This was to see whether they convicted him of something and had a diagnostic thing mentally to see if he was a violent person and they should put him in jail or not We'll find out all about it. I think we know the answer but we'll find out what the doctor thought about it That's patreon.com

Slash crime and sports and you get a shout out at the end of the show which comes I don't know right fucking now Jimmy Hit me with the most wonderful people in the world who would never ever ever murder us all with an axe and then try to Cut their own heads off. Give them to me right now. This week's executive producers are Joseph Armstrong, Elena Zemmell, Peyton Meadows, Thomas Lamar, and Kelly Story, and Alexis Snapp. Happy birthday, Alexis.

Look at you. Happy birthday. Yeah, other producers this week are Janice Hill, Chance Plofter, Platter, maybe plotter. Those are very different words. P.L. Laughter. That's what his last name is. He pees from laughter. Yeah. Katie Nemuth, Nemuth. Ariel Rose Walmsley, Patty Raines, Diana Carfire.

Is that right? Carfire. Rachel Brawner, Josh would know last name. Wyatt Mitchell, Pam would know last name. Josie Tucker, Nan would know last name. Wyatt Mitchell, Pam would know last name. Josie Tucker, Nan would know last name. Jordan Terkote, Christina Sabol, Holly Beher. Jake Everett, Heidi Summerfield, Jennifer Fletcher, Anna Wenzel, Cassidy Spencer, Sean Riazzi, Christine Peterson.

This show also brought to you by the letter K. Jessica Harden, Katherine Bell, Carla with no last name, Jack Elliott, Christine Kiefer, Chehula, Chehuala Bear, like the paint. Oh, okay. What's a Chehuala? Is that a, hmm. You're asking me.

I don't know, is that a place? I don't know. I don't know. Katie with no last name. I thought you were trying to say Chalupa, I have no idea. Moving along. Katie with no last name. Ellen McCormick, Dylan Myers, Laura McLaughlin, Kristen Wallace-Lilley with no last name,

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We appreciate it. Tracy B. Max with no last name. Crystal Alquist. Stephanie Chappelle. Dr. Lars Hawkins. Ann Carmich. Denise Eblen. Jenny Omelette.

And I'm going to go with the name of the person who's going to be the first person to be the Crystal Alquist, Stephanie Chappelle, Dr. Lars Hawkins, Ann Carmich, Denise Eblen, Jenny Omale, Omali, god damn it, Amanda Cabral, Lucas Burr, Barry McCaulkiner, sure that's your name, you son of a bitch, Michael Swink, Heather Helms, fair picture, you can watch my children, Beth Foster, Mike Hunt, another guy who's got a really fascinating name that's a pain in the ass when he goes missing in stores.

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They are one of those ring blowers. Casey with no last name, VapeGod. VapeGod. I'm gonna be the first one to die of whatever this shit gives me. Whatever strange disease they come up with next from this crazy shit. Broccoli Lung.

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Someone was fucking Michael Jordan's kid. Tracy, you're terrific. Tristan M., climate change related kid. Tracy, you're terrific. Tristan M. Climate Change Related Anxiety. Boy, don't I know it. And Angela would know last name. Sarah O'Brien, Jenny Miller, Blake Perry. Patty would know last name.

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