Seymour Perry Berger (July 12, 1923 – December 14, 2014) was an employee of the

Topps The Topps Company, Inc. is an American company that manufactures chewing gum, candy, and collectibles. Formerly based in New York City, Topps is best known as a leading producer of American Football Card, American football, Baseball card, baseb ...

company for over 50 years. He is credited as being the co-designer of the 1952 Topps baseball series, as is regarded as "the father of modern baseball cards".

Personal life

Berger, who was Jewish, was born on July 12, 1923, on the

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an im ...

neighborhood of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, to Louis (a furrier) and Rebecca Berger. As a boy, he collected baseball cards, traded them and won some from friends by flipping for them. He served in the

Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and later graduated from

Bucknell University Bucknell University is a private liberal arts college in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1846 as the University at Lewisburg, it now consists of the College of Arts and Sciences, Freeman College of Management, and the College of Engineering. ...

with an accounting degree. While in college, Berger met Joel Shorin, son of Philip Shorin, one of the founders of Topps. Berger died on December 14, 2014, aged 91, at home in

Rockville Centre, New York Rockville Centre, commonly abbreviated as RVC, is an incorporated village located in the Town of Hempstead in Nassau County, on the South Shore of Long Island, in New York, United States. The population was 24,023 at the 2010 census. Histo ...

. He is survived by his wife of 69 years (Gloria Karpf Berger), three children, five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Topps

Berger's first day at Topps was also the first day that Topps began to produce Bazooka Gum. In the autumn of 1951, Berger, then aged 28, designed the 1952

baseball card A baseball card is a type of trading card relating to baseball, usually printed on cardboard, silk, or plastic. In the 1950s they came with a stick of gum and a limited number of cards. These cards feature one or more baseball players, teams, stad ...

set with

Woody Gelman Woodrow Gelman (1915 – February 9, 1978) was a publisher, cartoonist, novelist and an artist-writer for both animation and comic books. As the publisher of Nostalgia Press, he pioneered the reprinting of vintage comic strips in quality hardcove ...

on the kitchen table of his apartment on Alabama Avenue in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. The card design included a player's name, photo, facsimile autograph, team name and logo on the front; and the player's height, weight, bats, throws, birthplace, birthday, stats and a short biography on the back. In an interview, Berger noted that the cards did not contain a reference to the particular year, because, he recalls thinking, "maybe if this thing is a dud, how are we going to get rid of the cards?" The basic design is still in use today. Berger would work for Topps for 50 years (1947–97), achieve the position of vice-president of sports & licensing, and serve as a consultant for another five, becoming a well-known figure on the baseball scene and the face of Topps to major league baseball players, whom he signed up annually and paid in merchandise, like refrigerators and carpeting. In 1960, because "nobody wanted the stuff" and Topps needed the storage space, Berger had the equivalent of three garbage trucks full of 1952 Topps baseball cards loaded onto a barge. The barge was tugged a few miles, and the cards were dumped into the Atlantic Ocean. At 81, Berger was still busy in various activities, including advising Topps, representing his old friend

Willie Mays Willie Howard Mays Jr. (born May 6, 1931), nicknamed "the Say Hey Kid" and "Buck", is a former center fielder in Major League Baseball (MLB). Regarded as one of the greatest players ever, Mays ranks second behind only Babe Ruth on most all-tim ...

, playing with his grandchildren and an occasional round of golf.

Legacy

Since 1978, Berger was a member of the

Society for American Baseball Research The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) is a membership organization dedicated to fostering the research and dissemination of the history and record of baseball primarily through the use of statistics. Established in Cooperstown, New ...

(SABR). In 1988, he was honored by the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He also earned his own baseball card, #137 in the 2004 Topps series called All-Time Fan Favorites. Berger was inducted into the

National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame The National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and Museum, in Commack, New York, is dedicated to honoring American Jewish figures who have distinguished themselves in sports. Its objective is to foster Jewish identity through athletics, and to commemo ...

on April 29, 2012, and acknowledged by the

New York Senate The New York State Senate is the upper house of the New York State Legislature; the New York State Assembly is its lower house. Its members are elected to two-year terms; there are no term limits. There are 63 seats in the Senate. Partisan compo ...

for this attainment of success and personal achievement. Berger was inducted into the

Baseball Reliquary The Baseball Reliquary is a nonprofit educational organization "dedicated to fostering an appreciation of American art and culture through the context of baseball history and to exploring the national pastime’s unparalleled creative possibilities ...

's Shrine of the Eternals in 2015."Shrine of the Eternals – Inductees"
Baseball Reliquary. Retrieved 2019-08-14.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Berger, Sy Baseball cards 2014 deaths 1923 births Topps United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II People from the Lower East Side Bucknell University alumni Jewish American military personnel 21st-century American Jews