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Posted By: Rhys

Peter

I actually believe the opposite. Since the day I was a little leaguer to the current day I have probably heard 10,000 managers say that physical mistakes happen but mental mistakes are not acceptable ever. Buckner made a physical error which happens, Merkle committed a mental error by not thinking. I think every manager in the history of organized baseball at any level would take the Physical Error over the judgement lapse.

In Merkle's defense however, this was fairly common to do back in 1908. The real person to blame should be John McGraw since the same play happened a few weeks before to the Cubs and McGraw never warned his team once about the possibility of it happening again. For someone who had every baseball rule memorized, he is the one with no excuse and not a rookie baserunner.

Rhys