Merkle's Boner

On September 23, 1908, at the Polo Grounds, the Giants and Cubs were tied in the bottom of the ninth with two out. Fred Merkle, filling in for the injured Fred Tenney, was on first. Moose McCormick was on third. Al Bridwell singled, McCormick trotted home, and the crowd spilled onto the field believing New York had won.

Merkle did what a lot of runners did when a winning run had already scored: he peeled off toward the clubhouse without touching second. Johnny Evers noticed. Which baseball eventually reached Evers is still disputed. What is not disputed is that he stepped on second and that umpire Hank O'Day called Merkle out. O'Day had seen a nearly identical play by the Pirates' Warren Gill on September 4 and had let it pass. This time he did not. The field was too chaotic to finish the game, and the league ruled it a tie.

They played it over on October 8. Mordecai Brown beat Christy Mathewson, 4–2, and Chicago won the pennant by that game. Merkle went on to a long, respectable career and hated the word bonehead. The catalog keeps the name history gave the play, and records that he asked not to be remembered by it.