Rule No. 1: Don't Follow All Rules
In late September of 1908, the New York Giants and the Chicago Cubs were
tied for first place in the National League pennant race with about a week to
go in the season. (This was in the days when there were no divisional playoffs,
let alone wild cards. If you won the regular season title, you went to the
World Series.) The two teams met for a game at the Polo Grounds and went to the
bottom of the ninth tied 1-1.
With two outs and Moose McCormick on first, Giants first baseman Fred Merkle
singled to right field, sending McCormick to third. The next batter then lined
a single up the middle, scoring McCormick with what should have been the
winning run and putting New York into first. But there was a catch. Merkle, who
was digging hard for second base, swerved away (he never touched second) and
started running for the Giants' locker room in center field as soon as he saw
McCormick touch the plate. As was their wont in those less orderly days, Giants
fans immediately came swarming onto the field when their team won, and Merkle
wanted to get a head start on the happy mob.
This, then, was what's known in baseball as Merkle's Boner. (Refrain from
all vulgar snickers, please.) According to the rules of baseball, the game
wasn't actually over until Merkle touched second base. Cubs second baseman
Johnny Evers (of Tinkers-to-Evers-to-Chance fame) realized this, tracked down
the ball (actually, people who were there say he got another ball from the
dugout, since the original ball had disappeared into the crowd), grabbed an
umpire, and stepped on second base, which in theory completed a force play on
Merkle. After much discussion, the umpires called Merkle out and declared the
game a tie that would have to be replayed. A week or so later, it was, and this
time the Cubs won, sending themselves to the Series and consigning Merkle to
permanent notoriety.
There's no question that according to the rules as written, Merkle did have
to touch second base. But according to custom in 1908, runners who were on base
when a game-winning run scored in the ninth tended not to touch the next
base and instead headed for their clubhouses. A month or so before, in a game
against Pittsburgh, Johnny Evers had tried the very same trick against a Pirate
runner who had left the field at game's end, but that time the umpire had
rejected his appeal.
In suddenly invoking the letter of the law, then, the umpires were requiring
Merkle to act in a way that he had no reason to believe he was supposed to act.
The community's understanding of the rule that a runner must always touch the
base to which he is forced was that this rule didn't apply when a game was won
in the ninth inning. What Merkle did, then, was what the community expected him
to do. This may not mean he was right to do what he did. But there's an
argument to be made that when custom systematically changes the meaning of a
law--in this case, changes it by adding an important exception--it's a mistake
to invoke the original meaning arbitrarily and without warning.
All of which brings us back to New York City's crackdown last week against
people who double-park while their streets are being cleaned. This form of
double-parking (which is clearly distinguishable from double-parking in
shopping or business districts) is customary throughout the city. On my street,
there's a guy who will double-park your car for you and then return it to
curbside when the three-hour street-sweeping period is over. It's been
understood that double-parking is technically illegal but that this is an
orderly and systematic community response to the reality that people need a
place to put their cars while the streets are being cleaned.
By descending on selected residential neighborhoods and ticketing all those
double-parked cars, the cops have pulled a Johnny Evers. They're just enforcing
the law as written. But by doing so without notice, they're catching people
breaking rules that the community had, in a sense, decided didn't need to be
enforced. (I exaggerate here, since the "community" is the community of car
owners.) And insofar as much of our everyday lives depends on knowing that
certain rules count and others don't--like laws banning cursing out loud, or
spitting in public, or oral sex--Rudy Giuliani is making everyone feel very
unsettled.
Actually, though, the unannounced war on double-parking is not really
characteristic of Giuliani. Most of his previous Jesuitical
initiatives--against jaywalking, speeding, gridlock, and the failure to wear
seatbelts, among others--have been announced well in advance, so that notice
was served that as of a certain date, things were going to be different. And if
you're going to hold people to the letter of the law, that seems like the way
to do it, because it'd be hard to have any sympathy for Fred Merkle if before
that September game the umpires had told both teams to make sure they touched
all the bases in the ninth inning.
