The Glory of Their Times by Lawrence S. Ritter

If you liked Dan Barry's article in Sunday's Times about the game between the New York Giants and the Chicago Cubs in 1908, the game with Fred Merkle's famous "bonehead" play, I highly recommend Lawrence Ritter's book, subtitled The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It.  The book was published in 1966 by Collier Books and includes stories told by twenty-two players who played between 1898 and 1945.  Among the players included are two who were there for the historic game between the Cubs and the New York Giants on Sept. 23. 1908.  Both Fred Snodgrass and Al Bridwell were with the Giants that day, Snodgrass on the bench as the third-string catcher and Bridwell the batter who got the hit that set off the whole Merkle incident, when Merkle failed to touch second as the apparent winning run scored from third with two out in the bottom of the ninth.  Snodgrass explains how at the end of a game in the Polo Grounds the ushers would open the gates and the fans would run onto the field, which is why Merkle took off for the clubhouse instead of touching second base.  Johnny Evers of the Cubs gets the credit for retrieving the ball (it's still disputed whether it was the original ball) and tagging second in the middle of the chaos.  Snodgrass, Bridwell and the other Giants never blamed Merkle; they lost five games after the Merkle incident and if they had won just one of those they would not have had to play the game over.  Bridwell says he wishes he had struck out on that September day, "it would have spared Fred a lot of unfair humiliation."

The Mets are now up two games to none over the Cubs, thanks to Daniel Murphy going first to third on a walk in the final game with the Dodgers and the excellent Mets pitching. But one can't forget either 1969, when the Cubs swooned in Sept., allowing the Mets to win the pennant (could the Mets swoon this time?), or 2004, when the Yankees were up three games to none over the Red Sox and ended up losing four in a row. One of the many beautiful things about baseball is its unpredictability, with small things sometimes making a big difference.