Fred Merkle
Posted on 09/23/2008 10:57:00 AM PDT by Charles Henrickson
One hundred years ago this afternoon, the New York Giants and the Chicago Cubs played a game that can still be found on baseball's figurative Mount Rushmore, next to the Bobby Thompson home run game, the Sandy Amoros catch game, Don Larsen's perfect game, and the game where Carlton Fisk waved it fair.
No one who played in or saw the game is alive. The Polo Grounds, where it was played, was demolished a half century ago. Doesn't matter. Some games just endure.
More specifically, what happened on Sept. 23, 1908, was this.
With the first breezes of autumn in the air, Giants' Hall of Famer Christy Matthewson had allowed only a solo home run by Cubs' shortstop Joe Tinker in the first nine innings. On the Cubs' side, Jack Pfeister also gave up just one run through eight.
But in the bottom of the ninth, the Giants' Moose McCormick reached on a fielder's choice with two out and was singled to third by rookie Fred Merkle. As Cait Murphy noted in her marvelous book "Crazy '08" (Smithsonian. $24.95), some reporters felt Merkle could have gotten himself a double. But his decision to stay at first was considered smart baseball, since he would gain little by trying for second. In the bottom of the ninth of a 1-1 game, only McCormick's run mattered.
Al Bridwell followed Merkle and slammed a clean line drive single to center, sending McCormick home and Giants fans pouring out onto the field to celebrate their 2-1 win.
Except there was a problem.
Running toward second base, Merkle had seen McCormick cross the plate and the crowd start to overrun the field. Following the custom of the day, then, he took a right turn and headed for the clubhouse, which in the Polo Grounds was behind dead center field.
When he did, Cubs second baseman Johnny Evers yelled for center fielder Art Hofman to throw him the ball.
What happened after that, Murphy notes, is lost in the mists of time - mists that closed in rapidly. The next day's newspapers contained at least a half dozen radically different accounts of the events at the apparent end of the game.
In some of them, Merkle was intercepted by Mathewson and steered back to second base. Some accounts said he got there, which he didn't.
In most accounts, Giants' pitcher "Iron Man" Joe McGinnity dashed from the first base coach's box to intercept the ball Hofman threw back to the infield and fling it deep into the stands.
That was that, McGinnity figured, except Evers was still yelling. If that ball was gone, he wanted another one.
Eventually he found one. Some say it was the real one, ripped away from a fan in the stands by little-used relief pitcher Rube Kroh. Others say it was another ball, relayed to Evers by shortstop Joe Tinker and maybe even third baseman Harry Steinfeldt, in a bizarre alternate version of the Cubs' famous Tinker-to-Evers-to Chance double play combination.
Whatever the ball's origin, Evers secured it, touched second base and asked the umpires – R.D. Emslie at second base and Henry O'Day behind the plate – to call Merkle out on a force play, which would nullify McCormick's winning run.
Emslie, who fell to the ground avoiding Bridwell's single, said he didn't see whether Merkle touched second and therefore couldn't make a call.
O'Day said he did see and no, Merkle did not touch second. Therefore, yes, he was out. McCormick's run did not count. The score was still 1-1.
The reason the home plate umpire was watching second base on this play was a story in itself. Nineteen days earlier, on Sept. 4, O'Day was behind the plate when Evers had attempted a similar appeal after a Cubs' game against Pittsburgh ended with a similar walk-off single.
Back in Pittsburgh, O'Day said he could not call the runner out because he had not been watching whether he touched second. Umpires never like having to say they didn't see something they should have, so obviously O'Day had made a mental note not to let that happen again.
By the time Merkle was called out, it was also getting dark, and given the logistics of clearing the field, O'Day saw no way for the game to resume. He called it on account of darkness and left National League President Harry Pulliam to decide what to do next.
Since there were still two weeks left in the season, Pulliam joined the general hope that in the end this game wouldn't affect the standings and he wouldn't have to do anything.
No such luck. The season ended with the Giants and Cubs tied for first place at 98-55.
So on Oct. 8 they all trooped back to the Polo Grounds to replay what was already being called The Merkle Game or, less kindly, The Merkle Blunder.
This time Matthewson was matched with the Cubs' "Three Finger" Mordecai Brown.
Matty had had a great season in 1908, winning 37 games with 11 shutouts and an ERA of 1.43. But he had also thrown almost 400 inning and by Oct. 8 he was plumb wore out.
The Cubs touched him for four runs, Brown only yielded two. The Cubs advanced to the World Series and a rematch of 1907 with Ty Cobb's Detroit Tigers, whom they once again creamed, 4-1.
It was a moment to savor for the Cubs, though it might have tempered their joy if they had known it would be the only thing they'd have to savor for the next hundred years, give or take Ernie Banks.
As it happens, the Cubs today are back in New York. They play the Mets, who aren't the Giants, but are the heir to National League baseball in New York. And sure enough, this year, just like a hundred years ago, both teams are playing for a pennant.
For the moment, though, let's stay in the past, since that game at the Polo Grounds a hundred years ago remains one of the most famous in baseball history – and certainly one of the most consequential.
For starters, with all due to respect to George Brett and his pine-tar bat, it remains the most famous do-over in a sport where there are no do-overs.
Without O'Day's call, which not every umpire would have made against the home team, the Cubs probably wouldn't have even played in the 1908 World Series, and their championship drought would not be 100 years, but 101.
The impact was equally dramatic for Fred Merkle, who went home to his room on the night of Sept. 23 and just sat for a long time. "I wished that a large, roomy and comfortable hole would swallow me," he said years later.
His teammates never blamed him for the loss or even thought he'd done anything stupid. Touching a base after a game-winning hit was then considered a formality with which no one bothered. There was no reason he should have done it.
Nonetheless, "The Merkle Blunder" earned him the nickname "Bonehead" – then and now, neither baseball players nor baseball fans are noted for sensitivity – and for many years the colloquial phrase "to merkle" meant not to finish a task.
He was aware of all that, and for many years rarely spoke of Sept. 23, 1908. Friends believed he deliberately stayed away from baseball just to avoid hearing the B-word.
Think Bill Buckner.
Merkle was held out of the Oct. 8 makeup game. In the ninth, when the Giants had a runner on base with two out, Giants manager John McGraw considered pinch-hitting Merkle, but decided it just wasn't fair to put him in the position of making the last out.
Merkle's career went up hill from there. He went on to play another 18 seasons, compiling a respectable .273 batting average.
Perhaps ironically, he was known as a smart player, someone who paid attention to the nuances of the game. After he retired he managed for almost 10 years before he took some government jobs and later went into the fishing equipment business.
With some trepidation he returned to the Polo Grounds for Old-Timers Day in 1950 and was greeted with cheers.
Still, the legacy of Sept. 23, 1908, followed him.
"I suppose when I die," he told a reporter, "they'll put on my tombstone, 'Here Lies Bonehead Merkle.'"
For what it's worth, they didn't.
The Glory of Their Times.
Good book. I read it maybe 35 years ago or so when it came out. I'm fascinated by baseball history. I'll mention another good book in my next post here in a minute.
I've been reading this book--I'm about two-thirds through it--and I agree, it's very interesting. I recommend it. There's even a website about it: Crazy '08.
Yeah, a long time Yankee fan!
Yeah, a long time Yankee fan!
Good book! Finished it a few months ago.
i absolutely love baseball, have ever since i was little...
Great story. I am hoping that the Zero pulls a “merkle” this election.
Baseball history!
I love the old baseball stories... I remember this one but forgot (until this reminder) that it was the Cubs team of ‘08 that pulled it out based on the Bonehead’s play. Great stuff.
For others on this thread who have a passion for baseball reading (especially for getting your kids or grandkids interested in the game and “years gone bye”), I’d recommend the John R. Tunis books written in the 1930’s to 1950’s, particularly “The Kid From Tompkinsville”. Great stuff (I was sorry to see that late among his writings he wrote some books revealing him to be a Dem/socialist but try to ignore that when reading his early work).
The Cialis commercials always say to call your doctor if your erection lasts for over four hours. Well, Fred Merkle’s boner has now lasted 100 years. Here’s a Yankee fan who is now saying “go Cubs”. 100 years is long enough.
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Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. |
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