September 24, 1908: Cubs lose as fallout and confusion from Merkle's Boner continue

Things are a mess right now in the 1908 baseball world. As you know, yesterday was the infamous Merkle's Boner (full story if you missed it), and even though I tied the story up in a nice bow yesterday, it wasn't quite that simple in real life. I mean, this is 1908 we're talking about here when the fastest transportation from Chicago to New York was a 36 hour train ride, so things don't exactly get done quickly.

In real time in 1908, the results of yesterday's game are still totally up in the air. Today the National League President Harry Pulliam met with the two umpires from the Merkle game to make their official ruling, which has yet to be fully conveyed.

National League President Harry Pulliam

Meanwhile, the New York media has gone right ahead and declared the game a 2-1 win for the Giants, and even published standings reflecting the game as a New York win. At the same time, the Cubs are living under the assumption that the game was tossed out and needed to be replayed as a doubleheader today ... the last scheduled meeting of the two teams this season.

The Cubs are so adamant about this that they show up at the Polo Grounds at 1:30 and act like there's going to be an early makeup game that will be played before the regularly scheduled contest. The Giants disagree, and don't show up for this imaginary game, but the Cubs field an entire lineup and even go as far as putting an entire uniformed team on the field so they can then claim that they win the game by forfeit.

So basically you have pandemonium on your hands and nobody knows what the heck is going on.

Eventually there's at least ONE game being played today, and no surprise, it's ANGRY!!!! An estimated 25,000 mostly pissed off Giants fans showed up for this one (about 5,000 more than yesterday), and their main goals are to scream at the Cubs and the umpires.

I really don't want to come to work today

According to the Tribune, the fans screamed at the Cubs players the entire game, calling them "yellow dogs, quitters, and bribers of umpires." And speaking of the umpires, they were basically out there taking their lives into their own hands. The Tribune went as far as insinuating that their calls on the day were deliberately in favor of the Giants because "the demeanor of the crowd in view of yesterday's riotous doings was so threatening the umpires had to exercise discretion" and make bad calls on purpose that benefitted the Giants.

Oh and while we are talking about the Tribune, these dudes were wonderfully over the top when talking about baseball. Every day reads like a Wrestlemania recap of Cubs players getting jobbed by umpires and opposing players exacting their evil will over the innocent and helpless Cub heroes, essentially slamming them through a table like they're one of the Dudley Boyz on a rampage ...

The other thing they loved to do was overreact about every little thing. So yeah, the Cubs lost today's game 5-4, which caused them to drop one game out of first. Let me stress that again in capital letters because it makes me look like I'm shouting ... ONE GAME OUT OF FIRST.

Ok ... no problem. There's still ten games left on the schedule, we still have a shot, right? WRONG! Not if you're the Tribune, who opened their article with ...

"Pale blue fog, hovering over the Polo Grounds, was the color of our playoff chances as they appear tonight."

They're ONE GAME out!! Relax!!!!

The game itself was really secondary to the drama. The Cubs sent Mordecai Brown to the mound and he pitched like crap, giving up five runs in five innings. Granted, he was going on one day's rest that also happened to be a day where he got both a win and a save in a doubleheader, so I think we can cut him some slack. Though in player-manager Frank Chance's defense, he did ask Brown twice if he was good to go and he said yes, so Three Finger does have to take some of the blame.

In the end, the Cubs lost 5-4 and dropped to 90-54 on the season and one game out of first. Chicago travels next to Brooklyn for a three game series with 10 games left on the season. A trip to Cincinnati comes after that, but before that the Reds travel to NYC to take on the Giants for four as the drama rolls on!