My Adventure with Judge Landis

Excerpted from the unpublished manuscript by Walter A. Berger and George M. Snyder, WALLY BERGER, FRESHLY REMEMBERED (Copyright 1989 by Martha Berger and George Snyder).

(Snyder) Before he went to the major leagues, Wally had played in the winter league in Los Angeles on Sundays. After his first season with Boston, he returned to Los Angeles and resumed his playing with the Kelley Kars managed by Fred Haney.

In his zeal to improve his skills as a center fielder, he continued to play after October 31st in violation of Major League Baseball's rules. In a game with the Royal Giants, a barnstorming team of some of the greatest black baseball stars, he hit three home runs. This feat came to the attention of Judge Landis, the Commissioner of Baseball, who warned him that he was violating his contract, and reminded him of the fine which could be assessed. Wally went to Fred Haney and asked him how he should respond to the judge.

(Berger) For several years I played in the winter league in L.A. In 1928, Howard Lindamore was running the Shell Oil team down at Signal Hill, and he asked me to play for them. It was a pretty good job with Shell. They would sign you up as a laborer, but all you did was work out and practice. They would play a couple games a week. They had a nice ballpark although it had a "skin diamond", that is to say a diamond without any grass.

Howard offered me $200 a month to play. When he asked me, I sat there thinking it over because I was recovering from intestinal flu which had put me out of action with the Angels for the last part of the season. I was still weak. Howard thought I was thinking about the money, so he said, "Wally, I'll make it $250." "No, Howard," I said, "I would have played for $200. It's not the money. My stomach is in bad shape. I've lost twenty pounds. I think I'll just go back home and rest." So I didn't play at all that winter. The next year, 1929, I played a game every Sunday in the winter league. Near the end of my first year in Boston, after having played left field all season, Manager McKechnie told me that I was going to play center field the next year. This announcement pleased me. I was the fastest player on the Boston team and I could cover a lot of ground, but I needed to learn to field balls hit at different angles in center field.

So when I returned to L.A. that fall, I decided to play center field for the Kelly Kars in the winter league just for practice. The manager was Fred Haney, my former teammate and friendly advisor with the Angels. In those days, in contrast to the present time where you read about major league stars playing everywhere during the winter, we weren't allowed to play exhibition games or anything after October 31st.

Well, I played beyond the deadline and I got caught. I had a great day against the Royal Giants, a black all-star team from Philadelphia, and the story went over the wire services:

"Walter Berger, the walloping sensation of the National League, put on a real hitting show at Wrigley Field yesterday afternoon for the Kelley Kars. Although his mates bowed to the Royal Giants, 9 to 8, it was Berger's slugging that featured the tilt. Berger clouted three homers and a single and walked once. His smashes accounted for seven of his team's runs..."

Judge Landis saw it and sent me a telegram warning me that I was violating the rules and could be fined up to $500. Immediately I went down to Fred Haney's office to ask his advice. During the week he was working for an electrical company down on 2nd and Spring. "Fred," I said, "I'm in trouble. I need your help on this one." And I told him about the wire from the Judge. Fred said, "We'll send him an answer explaining the circumstances." He told his secretary to take a wire and he started dictating: "Dear Judge..." I interrupted him. "Fred, I don't even know the man. How can I say, 'Dear Judge?" "Aw, he'll like it", answered Fred, "Judges like to be called 'Judge' whether they're still on the bench or not. Once a judge always a judge."

We composed a telegram and explained that I wasn't playing for the money there. I was just playing for experience so that I would be a better player for Boston. I followed the wire with a letter explaining things in more detail. I never heard anything more from the Judge. He let it go. And I quit playing. The reason I quit playing was that I knew the Judge meant what he said. He really was the "Czar" of baseball. I remembered that just nine years before, in 1921, when Babe Ruth had become the greatest star in baseball, he ignored the Judge's warning about post-season games after October 31st, and went on a barnstorming tour. The Judge fined the Babe and the other two players their full shares earned in the World Series. He also suspended them without pay for the first forty days of the next season.

(Snyder) Note on Judge Landis. If Central Casting in Hollywood had been looking for a character actor to play the role of a stern and righteous judge, they could not have anyone who could have played the role better than Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. He looked like a judge, he dressed like a judge, and he played the part on the public stage to fit the expectancies of his audience. Even the Judge's name was colorful. His father lost a leg on Kenesaw Mountain in Georgia during the Civil War, and afterwards gave that name to his son who was born in 1866. President Teddy Roosevelt named him a federal district judge in 1905. In 1907, he became a national figure when he fined Standard Oil of Indiana $29,240,000 for accepting illegal rebates on shipments of oil from the Chicago and Alton Railroad. It was in the "trust-busting" spirit of the Roosevelt Era. His decision, incidentally, was later reversed. During World War I, the Judge presided at trials of I.W.W. leaders and Socialists who opposed the war. They were convicted of obstructing the war effort. Shortly thereafter, a bomb was exploded at the entrance of the Federal Building where Landis was in his chambers on the sixth floor. His reputation as a fearless a patriotic judge was greatly enhanced as a result of this war-time activity.

In the 1919 World Series, players on the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the series to the Cincinnati Reds. So the leaders of baseball after this so called "Black Sox" scandal, created the new office of Commissioner of Baseball. They offered the job to Judge Landis in 192C was an action designed to improve the image of professional baseball. And it did. But in the process, baseball got its first and only "Czar." The Judge survived through many a controversy until his death in 1944.

For another view on Judge Landis, see James Floto's review of Judge and Jury: The Story of Judge Landis, David Pietrusza's biography of baseball's first Commissioner.