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Out of Left Field |
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MERKLE |
 FRED MERKLE in his glory days |
Keith Olbermann's crusade
helps salvage Merkle's rep
By STAN ISAACS
of TheColumnists.com.
The start of this week, Sept. 23, was the 94th anniversary of the infamous Fred Merkle incident. It is the inspiration for the story of a redoubtable guy who has seen an injustice and has been dedicating a part of his life to correcting it.
Keith Olbermann, the irrepressible
sportscaster, wants baseball history to record that life has
treated Merkle unfairly, that Merkle is not a bonehead. Huzzahs
to Olbermann for decades-long effort to clear the unfortunate
Merkle’s name.
For many people the Merkle incident has passed into history.
But not for Olbermann. He has been carrying the flame on airwaves
from coast to coast since 1980 and his ABC Radio program, “Speaking
of Sports,” was the forum for another Merkle essay this
week.
Fred Merkle was a 19-year-old rookie reserve first baseman for
the New York Giants in 1908. He has been looked upon ever since
as the man who cost the Giants the 1908 pennant. Olbermann rejects
that with a passion.
The details:
The Giants and Chicago Cubs were locked in a pennant race in
1908. In the final meeting between the teams at the Polo Grounds
on Sept. 23 the teams went into the bottom of the ninth inning,
tied 1-1. With two out, Moose McCormick was on third and Merkle,
who had singled, on first base. Al Bridwell then singled to short
center field, scoring McCormick to give the Giants a seeming
2-1 victory. Merkle, on first base, ran and did or did not touch
second base.
Johnny Evers, the Cubs’ clever second baseman, called for
the ball from the outfield and tagged second base, ostensibly
forcing Merkle for the third out and voiding what would have
been the winning run.
There was much confusion because fans had poured onto the field
to celebrate the Giants’ victory. Disputes arose about whether
Merkle had touched second base, about whether Evers had retrieved
the ball or had substituted another after the Giants had retrieved
the original ball and thrown it away.
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campaigning for years to revise the record about Merkle. |
The league eventually ruled against he Giants and called this a 1-1 suspended game. The teams then finished in a tie, necessitating a one-game playoff at the Polo Grounds, Oct. 8. Three Finger Brown beat the Giants and Christy Mathewson, 4-2, to win the pennant and go on to win the World Series. They haven’t won a World Series since and don’t think Olbermann is reluctant to point out that there is a curse on the Cubs that is associated with what they did to Merkle.
Olbermann says, “Merkle was clearly (more) sinned against than sinning. Though it truly was baseball law that Merkle was supposed to run to second base to prevent the force out that would nullify the run, that was not a baseball practice at the time. Neither players nor umpires had ever before stuck to the rule. Just three weeks earlier, in a game at Pittsburgh, the Cubs had vainly tried the identical appeal in another attempt to nullify a ninth-inning run.”
They made the appeal to umpire Hank O’Day. He refused to call that runner out, saying he didn’t see it, but the seed was planted. It was O’Day who called Merkle out.
Merkle died a broken man in 1956, three years before Olbermann was born. To his dying day he insisted he had started toward the clubhouse in center field, but had veered back and touched second base. He wasn’t believed and was regarded as “Bonehead Merkle” for the rest of his 16-year-career.
Olbermann says, “I first encountered the story when I was 6 and it fascinated me. I look back in shame now that when I first did a piece on it when I was at Cornell. I did the cliché thing and ridiculed the poor man.”
Olbermann, 44, is a bright, imaginative, often outrageous sports guy who does many witty, offbeat pieces. He endeared himself to me originally when he charted the athletes who interspersed the most “you knows” in their comments.
"But on this I am serious,” he says. “I feel obligated on almost a religious level. It has always bothered me that this guy who played 16 years and had an honorable career took abuse to the point he ran away from people asking about it, that he is remembered only for a mistake that many others made. I consider this baseball’s Dreyfus Case.”
Olbermann adds that “Merkle was not yet 20 years old on that fateful day. He was starting a game for the first time in his career and only because of the unexpected illness of a veteran. And his two-out single helped set up what should have been the winning hit.”
Olbermann has carried the Merkle crusade with him from Cornell to UPI radio, RKO radio, CNN, Boston’s WCBB, KTLA in Los Angeles, CBS, ESPN, Fox and now, ABC radio. When he moved to KTLA he had it written in his contract that he would be given time every Sept. 23 to pay homage to Merkle.
He is amazed, he says, “that a story this old is still alive.” But. of course, Olbermann is now doing more than anybody to keep it alive. “Each year I keep thinking that this will be the last time I can add anything to it, but things keep coming up. One year I got a call from a woman who said Merkle was her grandfather.”
He said, “The story appeals to baseball fans, but especially to people who don’t particularly care about sports. In my own small, pathetic way I hope I am helping to do justice to the man.”
© 2002 by Stan Isaacs. The Stan Isaacs caricature is © 2001 by Jim Hummel.
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