art_top8charlieberry

Legend has it that somewhere deep in the nook and crannies of Boston's Fenway
Park there is, or was, a picture of Babe Ruth colliding with a Red Sox catcher at
home plate.
     That catcher was Charlie Berry of Phillipsburg, former star football and base-
ball player for Phillipsburg High and Lafayette College.
     Though Ruth was then the mighty slugger of the New York Yankees, he still
was remembered fondly by fans in Boston, where he had started his career. Some
old-timers maintain that as a result of that collision with Ruth, Berry became less
popular with some Beantown fans.
     "He dumped Ruth and that was a no-no. They rode him out of Boston," claims
W. Parnell Lewis, a former editor of The Easton Express, who chronicled many of
Berry's exploits.
     Hilton "Dutch" Rahn, a longtime Red Sox fan, says he remembers seeing the
photo in question, but cannot pinpoint where.
     If the incident put a "banned in Boston" label on Berry, the situation was an
anomaly in the life of an athlete-official who became popular wherever else he
ventured, especially in the Easton-Phillipsburg area.
     That's a sentiment promoted by Rahn, who grew up near Berry's Hagerty
Avenue home in Phillipsburg.
     "He'd always give balls to the kids in the area and he told humorous anecdotes
about American League teams," says Rahn, who was a Phillipsburg classmate of
Berry's deceased oldest daughter, Helen Frances. Frances was married to the
president of Northwestern University.
     "He was outgoing, easy to talk to and accessible," Rahn says.
     Berry probably is best known as an All-America end at Lafayette and a longtime
umpire in the American League. He served as a National Football League head
linesman for nearly a quarter of a century.
     Berry held the distinction of being the only official to umpire the World Series
and NFL championship game in the same year (1958).
     In an outstanding career at Phillipsburg High, where he competed in basketball
as well as football and baseball, Berry missed only one football game in four years.
He was a two-way end, but also played fullback in his senior year.
     Berry enrolled at Lafayette College and as a freshman started at end on the
Leopards' 1921 national championship team. He was an excellent receiver and an
even better defender.
     In 1924, Walter Camp selected Berry as an end on his All-American team, citing
Berry's ability "to work his way through the interference, to sense the play and
speed down the field."
     Berry was a standout baseball catcher. He captained both the football and
baseball teams in his senior year and was president of the Class of 1925.
     Berry went on to greater things in both sports before turning to a career in
officiating.
     He played with the NFL's Pottsville Maroons in 1925 and 1926. Pottsville won
the league title in 1925, but was denied the championship because of playing an
unsanctioned game in Philadelphia against a team composed of Notre Dame
players, including the famed Four Horsemen. Berry kicked a late 30-yard field
goal that decided the game 9-7 for the Maroons.
     Joe Marhefka of Easton, the last remaining member of Lafayette played at
Bucknell in 1924, a game dedicating Memorial Stadium, coach Herb McCracken
took the Leopards to see Pottsville play.
     "Charlie took a liking to that and joined Pottsville in 1925 when they won the
championship," Marhefka says.
     A professional baseball career lay ahead. Berry signed with Connie Mack for
the Philadelphia Athletics.
     Berry's father, also named Charles, played professional baseball in 1884 with
four different clubs in the Union Associsation, which had a one-year existence.
     Berry played 10 games with the A's in 1925 and then spent two years in the
minor leagues, with Portland of hte Pacific Coast League in 1926, and Dallas of
the Texas League in 1927.
     In 1928, he returned to the major leagues with Boston and remained with the
Red Sox until being traded to the Chicago White Sox during the 1932 season. He
hit .291 that year, his best average in 11 major league seasons.
     In Chicago, he reunited with former Lafayette teammate Frank "Hans' Grube
of Easton. Grube played outfield at Lafayette when Berry was catching and then
succeeded Berry as the Leopards' catcher. Grube played catcher during his seven-
year, major-league career.
     Berry returned to the A's in 1934. That is where he completed his playing
career in 1938, by which time he had been a coach for two seasons.
     He stayed on as an A's coach until near mid-season in 1940, when Mack asked
him to take over the Wilmington Blue Rocks farm team of the Inter-State League.
     That move put him in contact with two other baseball notables from the
Lehigh River Valley area- Jack Wallaesa of Easton and Elmer Valo of Palmerton.
Both rose to become A's. The Blue Rocks moved up from seventh to second
place by the season's end.
     Berry enjoyed a stint as football coach at Grove City College in western
Pennsylvania, ringing up a 33-6-4 record in five seasons.
     Though he appeared headed toward a promising career as a baseball manager,
Berry opted for a career as a sports official.-
     He originally signed as an Eastern League umpire in 1941, then the International
League purchased his contract. After two seasons there, he moved up to the
American League in 1942 and umpired for the next 20 seasons.
     He also officiated pro football.
     Berry frequently worked the old College All-Star game in Chicago and the
World Series in the same season. One year, he umpired a double-header at Comi-
skey Park and then later in the day officiated the football all-star game.
     In 1958, Berry umpired in the World Series and then in the famous sudden-
death overtime NFL championship game between the Baltimore Colts and New
York Giants. The Colts won on Alan Ameche's 1-yard run. The game boosted
pro football's popularity immensely.
     Despite his busy officiating schedule, Berry found time to do public relations
work for Lehigh Foundry and coach the firm's basketball team. His wife coached
for the women's team.
     As Lewis says "He stuck to his roots around the Forks (of the Delaware). He
was good with kids and always bery good when he came back to college. ... He
had a great life in sports."
     Berry was inducted into the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame in
1980 after years earlier being inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame.
     Just last May he was among the inductees into the Hall of Fame of the National
Football Foundation and Hall of Fame's Lehigh Valley chapter.
     At that time, Lynn Farrington, the youngest of three daughters of Berry and his
wife, the former Helen Smith, wrote to Michael "Duke " Frinzi of Phillipsburg, who
accepted the honor for Berry, "I was born later in their lives (1939) and from the
time I could remember, my Dad was umpiring in the American League and was a
National Football League head linesman."
     Frinzi said, "I met Charlie as a child and just remembered that he was like a
legned to all present and potential athletes on this side of the river."
     By all accounts, Berry was quite a takler. Harold Bellis, former Phillipsburg
High football coach, had this recollection of a trip he and Chot Morrison, former
Hackettstown high coach, made with Berry:
     "We went to North Jersey for some kind of an athletic thing. I don't remember
what it was about or anything. Charlie did all the driving and the only thing I
remember is that all the way down and back he did all the talking."
     Similarly, in a memorial column written by Lewis in the then Express, at the
time of Berry's death in 1972, Wallaesa recalled: "When I had a tryout with the A's;
Mr. Berry picked me up in his car at the Lehigh Valley Railroad station at the foot
of Smith Avenue (Easton) and took me to Shibe Park. He talked baseball to me 60
miles coming back and guided me during the tryout."
     In the same column, Wallaesa credited Berry with building his interest in playing
the game professionally.
     "When Mr. Berry was my manager at Wilmington, he got me out early before
the regular practices and worked with me. ... Mr. Berry was one of the nicest men
I met in baseball. He never turned his head on me at any time."
     When Bellis was playing baseball at Lafayette, Berry, then the A's coach,
arranged an exhibition game between the A's and the college team that drew a huge
crowd to Fisher Field.
     Berry caught several innings for the A's, and when Bellis came up to bat, Berry
told him. "It's going to be right down the middle, Harold."
     "I had three hits that day, so he was right," Bellis laughed.
     After he retired from officiating, both the American League and NFL retained
him as an observer of officials and a scout for new officials.
     In June 1972, Berry was stricken at his home in Phillipsburg. He was admitted
to Warren Hospital and in July was transferred to a hospital in Evanston, Ill., near
the home of his oldest daughter. He died there on Spet. 6, 1972. His funeral was
held at First Presbyerian Church in Easton with interment at Belvidere Cemetary.
     His surviving two daughters, Lynn and Charle, both live in the Midwest. His
wife, Helen, a former teacher in the area, died in 1998.