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Yankees News: Dave Bergman, Once A Yankee, Forever A Ballplayer

By Billy Brost

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While most people that remember Dave Bergman, think of him as a Detroit Tiger, many might not recall that he began his career as a highly-touted draft selection of the New York Yankees. Originally drafted by his childhood favorite team, the Chicago Cubs directly out of high school, Bergman instead chose to attend Illinois State University, where he was named The Sporting News All-American as an outfielder in 1974. That same year, the Yankees spent their second round draft selection on him, and he continued his collegiate success in the Yankees’ farm system.

During his first professional season, in the New York-Penn League, Bergman was named league most valuable player. He repeated the feat his second year in the Bombers farm system, this time in the Eastern League. The Yankees were so impressed with the strides that Bergman had made, he received his first “cup of coffee” with the big club during their 1975 AL pennant-winning season. In 7 games during that initial call-up, Bergman failed to record a single hit, and he would spend the entire 1976 season back in the minors, in Triple-A Syracuse, where he would post a .295/.393/.400 season, before getting yet another call-up from the Yankees in 1977 after playing in 132 more games at Syracuse, posting a solid .312/.422/.494 triple slash line.

Bergman’s stay was brief in the Bronx during his second stint with the big club as well, seeing action in only 5 games, and recording his lone hit in pinstripes in 4 at-bats to complete his Yankees’ career at a .250 clip. Not much to celebrate there. In November of 1977, Gabe Paul sent Bergman to the Houston Astros as a player to be named later in a deal that brought Cliff Johnson to the Bronx.

Bergman would spend four seasons in Houston, and then on to San Francisco for parts of three seasons before finally finding his home in the Motor City. It was in Detroit, that Bergman became an integral part of Sparky Anderson‘s Tigers’ attack that helped bring home a World Series winner in 1984, where he played in 120 games, hitting .273 with 7 home runs and 44 driven in.

While Dave Bergman was never a superstar at the big league level, he was the consummate professional and a great teammate. You need to look no further than at some of the comments made over the past few days by some of his former teammates such as Alan Trammell, Tom Brookens and Nolan Ryan. Whatever needed to be done to win ballgames, Dave Bergman was willing. While he didn’t wear pinstripes too long, the Yankees most likely saw the same qualities in him coming out of college, that three additional teams saw in him during a 17-year big league career.

We at Yanks Go Yard wish to send our deepest condolences to the family, friends, and former teammates of Dave Bergman, who passed away earlier this week at the age of 61.

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