The All-Star known as Bergie played  in the last four seasons of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League

Joan Berger was born to be a baseball player.

Her father, Slim Berger, was a semiprofessional player who taught her the sport and frequently took her to games.

In a quote cited in her Wikipedia entry, Berger said, “My father was a great sportsman. He used to take me to all his games and I went in the field during his practices.”

Her father later founded the Garfield Flashettes, which was based in Garfield, N.J., and was the first girls’ softball team. Berger joined her father’s team when she was in the eighth grade. She tried out for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League as a sophomore in high school but was too young to join the league at the time. Berger joined the league in 1951 after graduating from high school.

Listed at 5 feet, 4 inches and 132 pounds, Berger batted and threw right-handed. She was allocated to the Rockford Peaches, a team managed by Bill Allington and featured in the 1992 film “A League of Their Own.”

Berger entered the league as a right fielder, racking up a .251 batting average in only 40 games that first year and maintaining her rookie status for the following season. In 1952, she switched to second base, won Rookie of the Year honors, and was the only rookie to make the All-Star Team.

For the 1953 season, she played shortstop and second. In 1954, she split her playing time between third base and second and hitting a career-high .280 during what turned out to be the league’s final season. Rockford made the playoffs in 1951, 1952, and 1953, but didn’t win the championship.

Following her AAGPBL career, Berger joined several other players on Bill Allington’s All-American team, a barnstorming remnant of the league, according to Wikipedia. The Allington All-Stars played 100 games against men’s teams between 1954 and 1958, each booked in a different town, traveling over 10,000 miles in the manager’s station wagon and a Ford Country Sedan.

Besides Berger, the Allington All-Stars included players Gloria Cordes, Jeanie Descombes, Gertrude Dunn, Betty Foss, Mary Froning, Jean Geissinger, Katie Horstman, Maxine Kline, Dolores Lee, Magdalen Redman, Ruth Richard, Dorothy Schroeder, Jean Smith, Dolly Vanderlip and Joanne Weaver.

Berger married Andrew Knebl in 1959. They had three boys, Andrew Jr., Kevin and Robert, and five granddaughters. She worked for Ferrero USA for eight years and retired in 1994. The company is an Italian manufacturer of branded chocolate and confectionery products, and the second biggest chocolate producer and confectionery company in the world.

Berger is part of the AAGPBL permanent display at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum at Cooperstown, New York.

The native of Passaic, New Jersey, died in Dover, Del., at 87.

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