UPDATE: Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Boner (Not Growing Pains)":
It's a force out. The run doesn't count.
Well. Don't I look like an idiot.
Via:
In his first career start, 19-year-old first baseman Fred Merkle cost the New York Giants the 1908 National League pennant. With two outs in the ninth inning of the season's final game, with the Giants and Cubs deadlocked at 98 wins and the score tied 1-1, Merkle singled to put runners on first and third. Shortstop Al Bridwell followed Merkle's base hit with a single to center. The lead runner scored. The crowd rushed the field to celebrate the Giants' pennant. But Cubs players determined that Merkle never touched second base—he simply ran off the field. A ball—possibly the same ball struck by Bridwell, but maybe not—was retrieved and thrown to second, where the umpires ruled Merkle out. After an appeals process, the game was replayed, and the Giants lost. The Cubs went on to win the World Series, their last one to date. Merkle would last 16 years and hit .273, but he identity was bound up in one mistake, the play known as Merkle's Boner.I've never understood why they didn't count the run. Once the batter reached first safely and the run scored, what did it matter what happened to Merkle at second base? Was he busted for immediately running out of the baseline before the run scored? Is that what "never touched second base" is supposed to mean? Fucking Chi-town queers.
"Wait, what?"
3 comments:
It's a force out. The run doesn't count.
Wait, it's not a forced out at second. Had it happened in real time, he could have chosen to turn back to first where they would have had to tag him. All after the run crossed the plate. He could have chosen to get in a run down between 1st and 2nd just to ensure time for the runner to cross. Unless there is a sub-rule somewhere controlling appeals at second after the winning run crosses, it sounds like a botch.
There was a force at second, but the thought at the time was that this rule: "A run is not scored if the runner advances to home base during a play in which the third out is made ... by any runner being forced out" was generally not enforced on hits to the outfield, or walkoff hits. A better question might be what if Merkle not only touched second but kept going, and got thrown out at third, would that discount the run? Either way, completely absurd. Makes me feel better for only blowing a call on Benny Jones getting thrown out at 2b in the only LL game I umped ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle%27s_Boner
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