NFL Quiz: 1) Who is the only QB to throw for 4,000 yards in a
14-game season? [Hint: 1978 was the first season with 16
games.] 2) Who are the only two receivers to catch 100 passes in
a season during the 1960s? [Hint: Both in the AFL] Answers
below.
Merkle”s Boner
Back on 7/9, Johnny Mac detailed the history of the Cubs.
Today he takes a look at Fred Merkle and the play that made him
famous, much to the delight of all Chicago.
Merkle was a 1st baseman who played the bulk of his career in
the deadball era. He was mostly a singles/doubles hitter who
could steal some bases, similar to players like Enos Cabel or
Willie Montanez. [Just testing your memory there.] His role in
the pennant race of 1908, however, is the stuff of baseball
legend, and the Giants fans of the day thought of him much like
modern Red Sox fans think of Bill Buckner. First, a little
background of perhaps the best dual pennant races in history.
The American League featured a tense, three-team race among
the Tigers, White Sox and Naps. [The Cleveland franchise was
known as the Naps in those days, in deference to player/manager
and Hall of Famer Nap Lajoie. They would become the Indians
in 1915.]
All three teams really went to the whip, playing over .600 ball in
September. The Naps briefly opened up a 2.5-game lead, but the
Tigers reeled off ten in a row to take their own half-game lead
over both pursuers with but one game left. Detroit bested
Chicago as Cleveland was beating St. Louis. The Tigers had a
rained-out game that had not been made up, but the existing rules
didn”t mandate that they needed to play it. Therefore, under
some controversy, they were declared the winners with a 90-63
record. The Naps finished 90-64 and the Pale Hose, 88-64, so, of
course, the makeup game could have been decisive.
Late in the race, on October 2nd, the game saw as fine a pitching
effort as any in history. The Naps” Addie Joss hooked up with the
White Sox great spitballer, Big Ed Walsh. Walsh was having his
finest season and the Sox were riding his back in the race. They
still couldn”t hit (.224 team avg.), but Big Ed didn”t need much
support. Appearing in 66 games, including 17 in relief, Walsh
went 40-15 with a 1.42 ERA, had a league-leading 6 saves to
boot, and logged 464 innings. That year was the main reason for
his plaque in Cooperstown. Joss was no piker himself, as he
posted a 24-11 slate, his fourth consecutive 20-win campaign,
throwing 325 innings with a stunning 1.16 ERA. In fact, they are
one-two all-time for career ERA (Walsh 1.82, Joss 1.88).
In the waning days of the race, each pitched brilliantly. Walsh
tossed a 3-hitter, striking out 15. Unfortunately for him, Joss
threw a perfect game and beat the Sox 1-0, the only run scoring
on a passed ball. Addie was only 28 on that day, a strapping
6”3″ hurler in the prime of his life. His career would include
another no-hitter against the White Sox, to go with 7 one-hitters
(pitching one of those in his debut). Joss would complete an
unreal 234 of 260 lifetime starts. So who could have imagined
that by Opening Day 1911 he would be dead, a victim of
tubercular meningitis. His teammates forced the postponement
of the opening game to attend the funeral, which saw former
major leaguer turned evangelist, Billy Sunday, deliver the
eulogy. The Veterans” Committee later decided to waive the 10-
year minimum for Addie, enshrining him in 1978.
Anyway, the Tigers of Ty Cobb and Wahoo Sam Crawford had
won the somewhat tainted flag and awaited the National League
winner. It was still to be determined who that may be. The
senior circuit was involved in a three-team tussle of its own, with
the two-time defending champion Cubs being pushed by the
Giants and Pirates. The Cubs, as we previously noted (7/9), were
loaded with pitching. Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown, 29-9
with a 1.47 ERA, and Ed Reulbach, 24-7 and 2.02, were again
having fine seasons.
For the Giants, Mike Donlin led the team at the plate, while
Christy Mathewson was having the best year of his career,
posting a 37-11 record, 1.43 ERA, and striking out 285 in 390
innings. His five saves also tied for the league lead, with Brown
and Giant teammate Iron Man McGinity.
As for the Pirates, they hung on to the end, due mainly to the
efforts of star shortstop Honus Wagner. He was winning his
sixth of eight batting titles, and led the league in slugging
percentage, on-base percentage, hits, total bases, doubles, triples,
RBI and steals. He would also finish second in runs scored and
homers. For what it”s worth, Wagner was the best player in
baseball history prior to Ruth, in my opinion.
Well, back to our story. The Giants had an aging veteran, Fred
Tenney, playing first base most of the season. He was a solid
enough player with a good eye, and got on base enough to lead
the league in runs. The morning of September 23 found the
Giants clinging to a slim lead over the Cubs and Tenney
suffering a lumbago attack. Unable to suit up, the Giants sent in
rarely used 19-year-old rookie Fred Merkle as a substitute. The
game was a nail-biter, the teams tied at one apiece, as the Giants
batted in the bottom of the ninth.
With two down, Moose McCormick stood on third and young
Merkle, after a single, was on first. Shortstop Al Bridwell then
lined a Jack Pfiester offering for a clean single to center. Game
over, right? You know better than that. What followed was the
most bizarre scene imaginable. Merkle, in his glee, ran about
halfway to second and then turned and went to the dugout. The
New York fans were piling onto the field to celebrate, a common
occurrence in those days because many fans lined up behind
ropes, sandlot style. [Stadiums were much smaller then, similar
to many AA parks of today.] Meanwhile, the Cubs” Johnny
Evers had alertly noticed that Merkle never touched second, and
realized he could still force him out, nullifying the run. He
frantically called for the ball, but centerfielder Solly Hofman
overshot him, the ball ending up near first.
Now it gets really weird.Joe Tinker, Cub shortstop, and Joe
McGinity, who was coaching first for the Giants, both spotted
the ball. The Iron Man outwrestled Tinker, and with Joe hanging
on his back, heaved the ball in the general direction of short.
Cub mop-up pitcher Rube Groh, who was just milling around,
saw a fan grab the ball. When the paying customer refused
Groh”s verbal plea to give it up, Rube proceeded to punch his
lights out. That seemed to persuade him, and Rube walked the
ball to Evers, who stepped on second. Ump Hank O”Day, as
legend has it, was watching the whole thing unfold. The mental
image I get is of Lou the caddy master watching intently as
Noonan”s winning putt falls to beat Judge Smells and Dr.
Beeper, but I digress. O”Day then calls Merkle out, disallows the
winning run, and immediately calls the game due to darkness.
The Giants, who are in the clubhouse whooping it up by now, go
ballistic. They protest the game to the league president, to no
avail, and finally to the Board of Directors, with the same result.
Just to make it really interesting, they end up with identical 98-
55 records, so the tie needs to be made up. The only thing that I
can compare this to is the Cal / Stanford game, with the winning
touchdown being scored by running around various tuba players.
35,000 people, a record at the time, show up at the Polo Grounds
for the pivotal contest. Matty (Mathewson) is staked to an early
lead, but the Cubs fight back and win the clincher 4-2, behind a
sterling relief effort by Three Finger Brown. The Series was
almost an afterthought, with the experienced Chicago squad
easily beating the young Tigers in five.
Merkle was a pariah in New York, and wanted out of baseball
following the playoff loss. John McGraw talked him off the
ledge, and he went on to play over 1600 games. The incident
followed him throughout his life (much like Buckner) and he
refused interviews till the day he died. The saying about all
things evening out sure didn”t apply to poor Fred. He went to 3
World Series; with the Giants, Brooklyn and the Cubs, all losers.
He was again instrumental in a famous Giant loss. In Game 8 of
the 1912 Series, tied 3-3-1, New York nursed a 2-1 lead in the
bottom of the tenth. With Matty on the hill, it looked good. In
fact, Merkle had singled home the go-ahead run in the top of the
inning. A chance for redemption. Catcher Chief Meyer made
the last out for the Giants in the 10th by lining a screamer up the
middle. Smokey Joe Wood, on in relief, barehanded the ball and
threw Chief out. Wood, who was an excellent hitter (.290), was
scheduled to leadoff for the Red Sox. The Sox had no one as
good as Wood on the bench, so it was advantage Giants, right?
Clyde Engle, a .234 hitter, pinch-hit and lifted a lazy fly to
center. Fred Snodgrass camped under it, pounded his mitt, and
dropped it, Engle ending up at second. Snodgrass immediately
tried to atone, robbing Harry Hooper with a great catch, Engle
tagging up. Steve Yerkes walked, bringing up budding star Tris
Speaker. Speaker hit a soft foul pop towards first, a sure out, but
Merkle froze on the ball, and it dropped harmlessly between him
and Meyer. Given a new life, Tris singled home the tying run.
An intentional pass to Duffy Lewis loaded ”em up for Larry
Gardner with one out. A fly ball deep enough for Yerkes to tag
up proved the Series-winning run. Another crushing loss for the
Giants.
It”s amazing how many tough losses involved Mathewson over
the years. To be fair, Matty pitched great in post-season, posting
a lifetime 1.06 ERA. But he somehow lost 5 games, going 5-5 in
11 starts. And he was on the hill for that playoff loss in 1908.
He did have those three shutouts in six days in the 1905 Series,
however. Maybe that”s a story for another day.
The Prairie Dogs and the Ferrets
Gather ”round, boys and girls, to hear the latest on the prairie dog
vs. the ferret. Now having been out touring around prairie dog
territory last week, I picked up the following on, first, the dogs.
Prairie dogs, as you know, bear no similarity to real dogs except
their call is termed a bark like that of a canine. French
Canadians named them “prairie du chien”, and later English-
speaking plains explorers apparently followed the French usage.
Prairie dogs once thrived on land stretching from southern
Saskatchewan to northern Mexico. But because of development
to their habitat (mostly farming and ranching), they are now
found primarily in protected areas such as Devils Tower and
Badlands National Park.
A member of the squirrel family (though brighter), prairie dogs
are highly social and live in densely populated areas referred to
as towns. The towns are then divided into wards and the wards
are divided into coteries. A typical coterie contains 1 adult male
and 3 or 4 females (not a bad deal for the male), plus all the
offspring they may produce. The residents then guard their own
coterie from intruders.
Prairie dogs, similar to the Taliban, have quite extensive tunnel
systems. A burrow consists of several chambers, which include
a listening post, watercloset, and a multichambered living area.
The dogs have an unusual communication system. The
government has supplied them with Nextel two-way phones, but
they still prefer to bark out their warnings. And the warning for
a hawk or eagle is totally different from any other.
Their diet is almost entirely vegetarian, which is a big reason
why there are signs all over the place not to feed them, because
they could die from too much sodium.which is also why they
avoid Chinese takeout.
But the prairie dog has many enemies, including coyote, fox,
badger, mink, bobcat, weasels, tax collectors, owls, hawks,
eagles, bullsnakes and rattlesnakes. And then there is the black-
footed ferret.
In the old days, the ferret would roam the prairies at night, in
search of the plump prairie dog, its favorite meal. In fact, 97%
of a black-footed ferret”s diet is prairie dog meat (which they
would then prepare either blackened, broiled, or baked). As the
Badlands National Park brochure puts it, “These tiny weasels are
beautifully adapted to life in a prairie dog town with their long,
lean, flexible bodies that wend their way underground to hunt.”
Perhaps the U.S. military should employ weaponized ferrets to
get the Taliban.
Anyway, by 1981 the ferret was considered extinct, as the prairie
dog towns were converted into major U.S. cities and colleges,
like Prairie View A&M. But out of nowhere, a few surviving
ferrets were found on a ranch in Wyoming. And this is where it
gets controversial. The weasels were taken into captivity, bred
and reintroduced into the Badlands and Buffalo Gap National
Grassland. Some 200-plus now exist in the area and
conservationists are concerned that the prairie dogs don”t stand a
chance. It”s a story that warrants another trip out West soon,
perhaps next week, just to keep track of it.
But in keeping with one of the pre-attack themes of Bar Chat,
that being the problems with man and the animal kingdom, I also
present these warnings from the National Park Service.
–“Prairie dogs can bite people who offer them food. Prairie
dogs carry diseases, fleas, ticks and lice, some of which can be
fatal to human beings.”
–And this one: “CAUTION! Rattlesnakes and black widow
spiders often use prairie dog burrows to escape the intense heat
of summer days. Never reach into a prairie dog burrow, as you
may be bitten by a rattlesnake, spider or prairie dog.”
Now it sure would take one stupid person to do such a thing, but
then our history is replete with such acts.
I also wrote over the summer about two men who were killed by
buffalo this year. Well, I was at Custer Park where the accidents
occurred and I was told not to get out of my car. Of course I
wasn”t about to do that (mainly because I was scared of being
bitten by a prairie dog), but I didn”t know that bison “can run 30
mph and may weigh up to 2000 lbs. Bison injure more visitors
each year than bears, wolves, and coyotes combined.Never
come within 300 yards of a bison.”
And here”s another reason for staying in your car and not
traipsing about the wild. Some 122,000 acres of the Badlands
National Park were once used as an aerial bombing range during
World War II. There is quite a bit of unexploded ordnance. I
imagine the prairie dogs back then had a different bark for
”incoming” than, say, for a hawk. More like a ”screech.”
Lastly, I forgot to mention that one day last week I went to Bear
Country USA, one of those drive-through parks. I thought this
would be neat, but within two minutes I was scared out of my
wits. Before I got started I was handed the following warning.
“September and October are very dangerous months at Bear
Country USA. It is rutting season for the elk, reindeer and
buffalo. The males are very aggressive and very protective of
their herd of females at this time. They will charge you from
across the meadow or from behind a tree! They are extremely
fast and can do a lot of dreadful damage to anyone who steps out
of their vehicle. Some of our visitors make the mistake of
believing that these animals are just a larger version of the gentle
deer family. They are not!! [As written] THEY ARE THE
MOST DANGEROUS ANIMALS IN OUR PARK AT THE
PRESENT TIME.”
Well, as soon as I started driving around, the elk were eyeing my
rental car.a rental car that I had decided to decline the
insurance on. Suddenly, I wasn”t so bold. And then I came to
the bear portion of the park. I was counting on one or two. Try
40! And they weren”t moving out of the way. I thought I had
written my last column (of course I was even more depressed
because I knew many of you might have wanted that). Well,
they just brushed up against the car and didn”t damage it, let
alone stick their paws through the glass in an attempt to get at my
Chex Mix. As for the elk, they just laughed and called me a
“chump.”
More Wildlife
From the pages of “High Plains Journal” come the following true
tales.
–Safeway stores is switching to New Zealand lamb, exclusively,
in their stores across the U.S. and Canada. Said Paul Rodgers,
the director of lamb marketing for the American Sheep Industry
Association, “I think it”s ironic that Safeway is so proud of the
$80 million it has contributed to community support programs,
yet they have chosen to blatantly disregard the economic welfare
of this nation”s 60,000-plus sheep producers.” I”m not shopping
there now, that”s for sure..On the second thought, New Zealand
lamb is awful tasty.
–You”ll recall that Japan recently had its first case of mad cow.
Well, it turns out the suspect animal was not destroyed as
previously announced, but processed into meat and bone meal.
D”oh!!!
Earlier, the government said the animal had been slaughtered and
burned. But there was a slight misunderstanding between
officials and local authorities and so after the cow was
slaughtered, its meat and bones were apparently sent to be
processed into meal before the results of a test for mad cow
disease were known.
–A herd of wild boars invaded a provincial legislature in central
Sri Lanka and damaged expensive carpets and furniture besides
scaring away workers. According to the AP and the High Plains
Journal, armed guards at the Central Provincial Council in Kandy
used clubs to chase the boars away. Where is CNN when you
need them.
Getting Back to Normal
The New York Post”s “Page Six” mentions today that Christy
Turlington has postponed her wedding to actor Ed Burns because
of fears of more terror attacks. Meanwhile, Rosie O”Donnell
canceled her shows this week. The editor was extremely upset at
this one.
But Spike Lee deserves some credit. He”s selling his courtside
Madison Square Garden seat for Michael Jordan”s comeback on
Oct. 30. [Don”t worry, we can still expect Spike to be there in
another one.] The bidding is up to $40,000…with the proceeds
going to families of terror victims.
Top 3 songs for the week of 10/9/71: #1 “Maggie May” (Rod
Stewart) #2 “Go Away Little Girl” (Donny Osmond) #3
“Superstar” (Carpenters).
*Special kudos to New York City police officer Daniel
Rodriguez for his moving renditions of “The Star-Spangled
Banner” and “God Bless America” during Monday”s Yankees-
A”s game. And once again, the legend of Derek Jeter grows.
NFL Quiz Answers: 1) 4,000 yds in 14 games: Joe Namath,
1967. 491-258, 52.5%, 4,007 yds. 26 TD-28 INT. 2) 100
receptions in the 60s:1961 – Lionel Taylor, Denver (100-1176-4
TD) [Taylor played 10 yrs., caught 567 passes and led the
league in receptions 5 times.] 1964 – Charley Hennigan,
Houston (101-1546-8 TD). [Hennigan played 7 years and caught
410 passes to go along with a fine 16.6 avg. and 51 TDs]
Next Bar Chat, Friday…Todd Rundgren.
