The Biggest Blunders and Bloopers in Baseball

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It is Game 4 of the World Series and the Brooklyn Dodgers are only one strike away from beating the New York Yankees, their hated rivals. Mickey Owen is behind the plate for the Brooklyn Dodgers, who are up 4-3 in the game and are down to the last out. Pitcher Hugh Casey had two strikes on Tommy Henrich, the New York batter and the crowd was anticipating that they were about to see Brooklyn win to tie the series 2-2. The pitch was thrown, Henrich swung and missed and strike three was called. Game over right? Wrong! The ball broke sharply through the air and Owen was not able to catch it. The ball went past him and rolled to the backstop. Under baseball rules, Henrich could run to first base and be safe as long as he was not tagged or called out. Now, with Owen on first base, Joe DiMaggio singled and Charlie Keller followed him with a double. By the time the last out was called in the inning, the Yankees had scored four times, beating their rivals 7-4 and taking the series in the next game.

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It is the NL pennant race of 1908 and three teams are fighting for the top spot. The Pittsburgh Pirates, who won the pennant from 1901-03, the New York Giants, who won from 1904 to 1905 and the Chicago Cubs, who won from 1906 to 1907. The three teams are clustered together near the top spot, each within a few games back of each other. On September 23, 1908, the Cubs and the Giants are tied for top spot ad Giant’s first baseman Fred Merkle is about to enter the history books. Already the youngest player in the National League, he has played 38 games, with 11 of them being as first base backup to Fred Tenney. After Tenney woke up sick on Sept. 23, Merkle got the start, which was the first start of his career. Christy Mathewson, a future hall-of-famer, was pitching in the Giants home park, with Jack Pfiester pitching for the Cubs. Through the game, it was a close match with the score being 1-1 in the bottom of the ninth. There were two outs, with one person on base and Fred Merkle at the plate. He had only 47 at bats all season but given this chance he singled down to right field and the winning run made it to third base. Then, Al Bridwell came up next, hitting a ball to center field allowing the winning run to score. The game appeared to over and fans swarmed the field. Seeing the fans swarming the field, Merkle stopped his run to second and turned back towards the dugout thinking the game was over. Seeing this, the Cubs shortstop shouted for the ball and threw it to the second baseman who touched second. Under the rules at the time, no run can score if the third out was made on that play. The umpires talked it over and Merkle was ruled out and therefore the run did not score.
The decision was incredibly controversial and many baseball players and newspapers aid that Merkle did indeed touch second, while others claimed he was restrained from being able to touch second. Another story said that a Giant’s player grabbed the ball and threw it into the stands so Merkle could not be called out and the Cubs just grabbed a second ball. Nonetheless, the game ended in a 1-1 tie and was called due to darkness. A makeup game was scheduled and the Giants lost to the Cubs, who would go on to win the World Series. Naturally, Merkle took the blame for the loss of a World Series and the New York Times even said that the loss of the title was because of the “Censurable stupidity on the part of player Merkle” and Merkle was often called Bonehead for the rest of his life. Even so, Merkle continued to play for the Giants for the next 10 years and retired in 1926. The New York Giants would eventually win the World Series in 1921, 1922, 1933 and 1954 while the Cubs would never win another World Series. Merkle continued to live with the stigma of his error, never winning a World Series, but eventually things were forgiven. At a Giants old-timers game in 1950, he received a standing ovation from the crowd.

Author: Craig Baird — Copyrighted © roadtickle.com