Quote:
Originally Posted by Merkle923
Unless the primary ID is mistaken, this is not just a shot of the scene just seconds before the most infamous play in baseball history, but evidence that the most famous photographer in baseball history was there - and missed the shot of the most infamous play in baseball history......So here's the kicker. Bridwell connected on the first pitch, scoring McCormick and sending Merkle not to second but to the Giants' clubhouse, which required a hard right somewhere before he got to the next base, and sending them all into infamy when the Cubs convinced the umpires to call him out and nullify the run in this game with the two teams virtually tied for first place.
And Charles Conlon missed it.
If he photographed Merkle inching off the bag in the bottom of the ninth on September 23, 1908, he had to have almost immediately thereafter closed up his heavy, cumbersome camera and begun to move off the field just as Bridwell singled. While the most famous rhubarb in sports history unfolded, Conlon had to have been moving away from it, trying to lug the camera and the glass plates he had exposed that day safely off the field.
Bridwell's hit, Merkle not reaching second, McCormick scoring, the crowd pouring out of the stands, the Cubs refusing to leave the field, the Giants dragging Merkle back from the clubhouse to touch second, rival pitchers Joe McGinnity and Floyd Kroh wrestling for the ball, McGinnity throwing it into the stands, Johnny Evers somehow producing a new baseball and tagging second with it, umpires Hank O'Day and Bob Emslie ruling an hour later that Merkle was out - Conlon missed it the way those folks in the parking lot that you see suddenly jamming on their brake lights in highlights of Game 1 of the 1988 World Series missed Kirk Gibson's homer.
So not only is this an image from "the Merkle game" taken just seconds before the most dissected play in history but it suggests that the story that there are no photos of it isn't just wrong, it may have been deliberate. Because if you're Charles Conlon, do you really want anybody to know "Oh, yeah, I photographed that game but I left with two out in the bottom of the ninth"?
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Not the Merkle game. After late August 1908, the Cubs switched to solid black socks (Chicago Daily News 8-21-1908) and caps. There are numerous photos that support this change, and there is one particular photo highly likely to be from the series that included the Merkle game. The Cubs wore solid black caps and socks.
Gory details are here:
http://sabr.box.com/shared/static/2n...3esz0o7qkk.pdf
http://sabr.box.com/shared/static/ir...mspxj4k0b8.pdf
As to whether it's Merkle or Herzog or whomever, I look forward to seeing a high res version of the image.
As for the above mentioned Justin Mckinney, he is one of the best early baseball photo researchers I have encountered, and he is a very major contributor to SABR Pictorial History Committee (of which I am co-chair).