Replies

Fred Merkle was a young player on the NY Giants, who were battling the Cubbies in the pennant race in '08--back when henkster was still just a gleam in his granddad's eye. In a mid-September game at the Polo Grounds in NY, before a packed house, the game was tied in the last of the 9th, with two out and runners on 1st and 3rd--Merkle on 1st. That's the setup.

But there's one more thing you must understand before it makes sense. The Polo Grounds grandstand backed into Coogan's Bluff, so that the spectators were obliged to exit across the field and out through the center field wall. The next time you see Willie Mays' historic back-to-the-infield catch in the '54 World Serious, look to his left and you'll notice the outfield wall (480' from home plate!) just disappears--that's where the spectators exited and where many a batted ball rolled forever.

So the batter hits a single to the outfield, scoring the winning run. But Merkle, not wanting to be enveloped by the onrushing crowd, headed straight to the dugout instead of touching 2nd base. Johnny Evers (of "Tinker-to-Evers-to Chance" fame), the Cubs' second baseman, noticed, found a ball somewhere, went to retrieve a departing umpire, dragged him through the milling, celebrating crowd, and touched second base, forcing out Merkle and sending the game into extra innings.

The game was finished at a later date, the Cubs won the game, then won the pennant and the World Serious, and haven't won one in the 107 years since. That was Merkle's Boner.

And but for Merkle’s Boner the Cubs wound not have won more than one world series in all their gloried history. A “what if” that violates Henkster’s Law because it involves Merkle not being Merkle.

As for the “next great war being the last great war,” I tend to agree, depending on how man attempts to fight it. If we decide that the war will be an application of as much killing force as possible, it will indeed be the last great war. Given the increasing cycle of brutality that seems to take hold in every war, as the stakes of victory and defeat grow higher, a “great war” will become a total war. I didn’t go into this in any detail in my post, but I believe that even without using the crude destructive power of nuclear weapons, military technology has become so unerringly lethal with computerized killing systems that no human, soldier or civilian, could survive very long above ground, and maybe not all that long below ground, either. Until now there has always been some random element in warfare whether a bullet or shell has your name on it. Most had no names at all.

It has gotten to the point that now, every bullet has a name on it.