The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-09-22
MerkIe Living
 Down Incident 0t Chicago Contest
Giants First Baseman Daily Wins Plaudits For Great Work on First

St. LOUIS, sept. ZZ.-FTeu M0I'kle, lIe National goat of 1908, is coming into derstood, the most ulderrated man in baseball, has finally fought s1is way across the toughest barrier that a ball player ever faced. and if the Giants are topping the crest upon the Ides of October, the ex-National goat will lead the van as one of the new National heroes around the camp-fires of the game.
 Merkle is not the first man who has found that years of work are re- quired to offset one moments lapse who have discovered that often not even years of virtue can make up for one minutes sin.
 Many remember a mans fall, but few care to watch him climb again. The general feeling around the league through all this time has been that Merlcle should be listed as fair me chanical player but more or less in- clined to the marble dome school of thought and science.
 Merlhle is more than @ fair mechan- ical player. His work of late has bordered upon the spectacular. No first baseman in the games history has done any grander work than he has furnished for the past few weeks.
 But more than that, McGraw re- gards his tall first baseman as one of the brainiest men on the team. He is not only good around the bag and a quick thinker, but more than all, Is one of the best fighters of the game. He feels that he has more at stake now than any other Giant and yet under this heavy strain giving one of the best exhibitions of the decade.
 It is hard to figure how many bad throws Merkle has blocked by phe- nomenal playing. Day after day he has dug into the hard soil for low infield pegs or swung into the rum ner for those throws listed among the hardest to handle.
 In addition to his ball playing, the Giant first sacler is one of the best read and most widely travelled men in the game. Studying upon the side, he has already prepared himself to take the Ohio law examination, and may do so this winter.
 He is an ardent reader of Tolstoi, Maeterlinck, De Maupassaint and sical or bordering upon the same. He is a close student of men as we'll as books, and his opinion upon any sub ject is always sure to carry weight with the rest of the team.
 There is another remarkable trend to his nature, Bali players, who rare ly get the worst of it, are not always IIlcflH6Q CO Cu0CTIuI. ulSpOSIIIOLS dAtci the strain and labor of a heavy cam paign. Nine hundred and ninety nine ball players out of every thou sand who had bucked what Merkle faced after 1908, and had drawn all that banning, would be crabs to the end of their careers. But if that episode and it's aftermath has soured Merkle'ss nature in any degree he has kept it we'll. hidden.
 He was wise enough to take this as one of the breaks of the game, and strong enough to go out again and make his fight for recognition.
 McGraw to-day figures Merkle far and away the best first baseman in the National league and one of the most valuable ball players in the game. r.
 Earlier in the year the MerlSle.Dau- bert trade was considered joke from Daubert standpoint. The Brook lyn star is a high-grade man, one of the best in the business, but the laugh would be the other way around if c. Hercules Ebbetts suggested an even trade to-day.
 Merkle's one ambition since 1908 has been to do his share toward breaking the Cub machine and setting the Giants again on top. He has more than made good in this highly laudable ambition. He has done more than his share for Giant success.
 And if the Giant lineup swings in against the Athletics next month 1908 will be wiped out of Merlzle's history. Only Merk1e doesn't care whether it is wiped out or not. If the Giants win this fall the incident will be bur jed in so far as he is concerned and the rest of the world can feel as they like about it. That will be the rest of the worlds business. not his.
 For that happens to be just the kind of a man that Merkle is. And there are not very many of this kind.