ing to the ground rules.
That was a mistake, but it made little difference in the end.

All the players, both the Cubs and the Giants, were under a terrific
strain that day, and Seymour, in his anxiety to be sure to catch the ball,
misjudged it. Did you ever stand out in the field at a ball park with
thirty thousand crazy, shouting fans looking at you and watch a ball climb
and climb into the air and have to make up your mind exactly where it is
going to land and then have to be there, when it arrived, to greet it,
realizing all the time that if you are not there you are going to be
everlastingly roasted? It is no cure for nervous diseases, that
situation. Probably forty-nine times out of fifty Seymour would have
caught the fly.

"I misjudged that ball," said "Cy" to me in the clubhouse after the game.
"I'll take the blame for it."

He accepted all the abuse the newspapers handed him without a murmur and I
don't think myself that it was more than an incident in the game. I'll try
to show later in this story where the real "break" came.

Just one mistake, made by "Fred" Merkle, resulted in this play-off game.
Several newspaper men have called September 23, 1908, "Merkle Day,"
because it was on that day he ran to the clubhouse from first base instead
of by way of second, when "Al" Bridwell whacked out the hit that
apparently won the game from the Cubs. Any other player on the team would
have undoubtedly done the same thing under the circumstances, as the
custom had been in vogue all around the circuit during the season. It was
simply Fred Merkle's misfortune to have been on first base at the critical
moment. The situation which gave rise to the incident is well known to
every follower of baseball. Merkle, as a pinch hitter, had singled with
two out in the ninth inning and the score tied, sending McCormick from
first base to third. "Al" Bridwell came up to the bat and smashed a single
to centre field. McCormick crossed the plate, and that, according to the
customs of the League, ended the game, so Merkle dug for the clubhouse.
Evers and Tinker ran through the crowd which had flocked on the field and
got the ball, touching second and claiming that Merkle had been forced out
there.

Most of the spectators did not understand the play, as Merkle was under
the shower bath when the alleged put-out was made, but they started after
"Hank" O'Day, the umpire, to be on the safe side. He made a speedy
departure under the grand-st