Skip to main content

Wrigley Field 100

Wrigley Field, Chicago
On April 23, 2015 Chicago Cubs fans will celebrate 101 years of Wrigley Field, could this be 'next year'? Click to see video on YouTube.

During the dog-days of summer baseball fans come to the stark realization their team has been mathematically eliminated from the pennant race. And the chant begins again, “Wait till next year.” Cub fans have been waiting since 1908. Yes, believe it, 1908 was when the Cubs won their last World Series. Way before television, long before radio, and by a fluke of what baseball fanatics call Merkle’s Boner.

For those not familiar with the story, now that I think of it, not many people I know today were there to witness the twist of fate that allowed the Cubs the opportunity to win the National League Pennant that year then the World Series.

The heated race for the Pennant came down to the Cubs vs the New York Giants.

It was the bottom of the ninth, with two men out, two men on base, and the score tied one-to-one, veteran Giant pinch-hitter Moose McCormick was on third, representing the winning run.

Fred Merkle was the runner on first.

Giant shortstop, Al Bridwell, hit a single. At the crack of the bat Fred Merkle headed for second. Moose McCormick lumbered home. The Giants had apparently won the game 2-1.

Giant fans poured onto the field in elation. Alarmed by the crowd bering down on him, and convinced the game was over, Merkle did not touch second, and ran straight to the clubhouse. However, the rules state that since Merkle did not touch second if Cubs second baseman, Johnny Evers, who saw the situation unfold, could get the ball, touch second, then Merkle would be out. Bridwell’s winning run would be canceled by the force-out. The Cubs would have a chance.

Sounds simple enough, but the “winning” ball had been tossed into the stands. A fan in a brown bowler caught it and started home with his trophy. Two Cubs chased the man through the raucous crowd, knocked him down, grabbed the ball, threw it to Joe Tinker, who relayed it to Evers at second. 

Merkle was out.

Both teams now claimed victory. It took Harry Pulliam, the league president, a full week to disallow the Giant run and declare the game a tie, to force a replay if the two teams were deadlocked for the season. As fate would have it they were.

The Cubs went on to win the pennant from the Giants that year and then swept the Detroit Tigers in four games to win the 1908 World Series.

According to Tyler Poslosky from Bleacherreport.com, “Since winning back-to-back titles in 1907-08, the Cubs appeared in the World Series seven times over the next 37 years, losing all of them.”

Poslosky records, “In 1910, the Cubs lost 4-1 to the then-Philadelphia Athletics. In 1918, the Cubs fell to the Boston Red Sox 4-1. Philadelphia got the best of Chicago a second time in the 1929 World Series, winning 4-1. In 1932, the New York Yankees swept the Cubs, 4-0. Three years later, Detroit got revenge, winning 4-2. In the 1938 series, the Yankees triumphed again with another four-game sweep of the Cubs. And in 1945, the Cubs lost to the Tigers in seven games.”

So let me ask you this, with Wrigley field turning 100 what quirk of fate will break the loosing streak and reveal this years winner? Is it the magic, or curse of baseball? With 162 games to be played what will the defining game be that turns everything around for the team? I’m convinced this is what keeps loyal baseball fans coming back to stadiums like Wrigley year after year.

This could be next year for the Cubbies!

Let’s wait and see . . .
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular of All Time

Boy on a Beam

In this special bonus episode, Boy on a Beam. In a world long ago, when the days moved quite slow, Before buzzes and beeps and the fast things we know, A boy sat quite still on a very fine day, Just staring at nothing . . . and thinking away. No tablets! No gadgets! No screens shining bright! No earbuds stuck in from morning till night. No lists, no charts, and no chores to be done. He just sat there thinking—that's quiet-time fun! His name was Young Albert. He sat in his chair, Thinking of things that weren’t really there. “Suppose,” said Young Albert, with eyes open wide, “I ran super fast with my arms by my side! Suppose I ran faster than anyone knew, And caught up to sunshine that zoomed past me—too! If I hopped on its back for a light-speedy ride, What secrets would I find tucked away deep inside?” “Would stars look like sprinkles, all shiny and small? Would UP feel like sideways? Would BIG feel like Tall?” He giggled and wondered and thought, and he dreamed, Till his head fel...
Post a Comment
Read more

When Fear Becomes the Default

In this special episode, When Fear Becomes the Default. Early Sunday morning, I was cycling past a small veterans’ pocket park in San Marcos. The air was still, the streets nearly empty. On one corner stood a young woman, alone, holding a hand-painted sign that read: “Be ANGRY. ICE agents are murdering people.” I pedaled past, but the words stayed with me. I knew the context—the footage and headlines from Minneapolis the day before, already ricocheting through the country and hardening opinions. Even in the quiet of the ride, the noise followed. Two miles later, I stopped at a red light. A black car with dark windows pulled up inches from my bike. My heart jumped. My first instinct wasn’t neighbor —it was threat . I found myself bracing, scanning, and wondering if the person inside was angry, armed, or looking for trouble. Then the door opened. A well-dressed young woman stepped out, walked to the trunk, and pulled out a sign that read “Open House.” She turned, smiled brightly, and sa...
2 comments
Read more

The Thought Experiment–Revisited

In this episode. The Thought Experiment–Revisited The Boy on a Light Beam In 1895, a sixteen-year-old boy did something we rarely allow ourselves to do anymore. He stared into space and let his mind wander. No phone. No notes. No “Optimization Hacks” for his morning routine. Just a question: What would happen if I chased a beam of light—and actually caught it? That boy was Albert Einstein . And that single act of curiosity—a Gedankenexperiment , a thought experiment—eventually cracked open Newton’s tidy universe and rearranged our understanding of time itself. Not bad for an afternoon of daydreaming. Imagine if Einstein had been “productive” instead. He would have logged the light-beam idea into a Notion database, tagged it #CareerGrowth, and then promptly ignored it to attend a forty-five-minute “Sync” about the color of the departmental logo. He’d have a high Efficiency Score—and we’d still be stuck in a Newtonian universe , wondering why the Wi-Fi is slow. In a post I wrote back in...
2 comments
Read more

Sweden Called . . . They Said No.

Have you ever wondered about  the Nobel Prize? Let's look at Where Genius Meets “Wait—Where’s My Medal?” Every October, the Nobel Prizes are announced, and humanity pauses to celebrate the "greatest benefit to mankind." And every year, like clockwork, a specific type of person appears online to complain—at length—that they were robbed. (Well, maybe this year more than most.) The Origin: A Legacy of Guilt The prize exists because Alfred Nobel, a Swedish inventor, had a crisis of conscience. Nobel held 355 patents, but he was most famous for inventing dynamite. When a French newspaper mistakenly published his obituary, calling him the " Merchant of Death, " he decided to buy a better legacy. In his 1895 will, he left the bulk of his massive fortune to establish five prizes (Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, and Peace). Because he was Swedish, he entrusted the selection to Swedish institutions, such as the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The only outlier...
1 comment
Read more