Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankWakefield
This thread reminds me of one of my favorite baseball quotes:
Baseball is like Church. Many attend, few understand.
That explanation TOTALLY misses how that play developed. Back in the day, all players normally veered away from 2nd base to get off of the field in that end of game situation. Earlier in the season Johnny Evers (EE - vers, not sounding anything like the plural of 'ever') attempted that end of game force out situation, and the umpire didn't call it. Evers and the umpire discussed it, and the umpire indicated that if it came up again, he'd be watching and he'd call it. Well it did come up, in this critical game.
Merkle was intelligent. Merkle was among the few players with whom the Giants manager would discuss baseball strategy. And that was no normal manager... it was John McGraw, among the elite of baseball strategists. Get the 4 cd set of The Glory Of Their Times, and listen to Chief Meyers discuss the play, manager McGraw, and Fred Merkle. After listening to that, you'll think that McGraw didn't chew out Merkle for a baserunning blunder, but that he perceived that Evers had out rules mastered McGraw.
I think that listening to that CD set, reading that book and a few others, should be required reading here. [/SIZE]
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This is right, but I still think the umpire, Hank O'Day, was wrong to suddenly enforce this rule (with that side understanding with Evers) at the end of the season, in a pennant race.
Keith Olbermann has been working for years to clean Fred Merkle's name of that "boner" misnomer. When O'Day was inducted into the HOF I emailed Keith and he replied by spelling out why O'Day's ruling was wrong:
Of course the key to the O'Day call is, if he really thinks that's a third out, he has to either resume the game or forfeit it to Chicago. He got it wrong no matter whether you think the premise of the play was right or wrong.
His options were:
1) Base hit, ballgame over
2) Not a base hit, resume game
3) Not a base hit, forfeit to Chicago