Scapegoats: Baseballers Whose Careers Are Marked by One Fateful Play (review)

Acknowledging that the long history of baseball contains any number of candidates suitable for inclusion inScapegoats: Baseballers Whose Careers Are Marked by One Fateful Play, Christopher Bell has nevertheless come up with a list of nine players whom he believes meet the highest standards for fateful plays. Readers with more than passing familiarity with baseball lore will recognize the usual suspects. From Fred Merkle of the 1908 Giants, marked forever by his failure to tag second base on a winning hit, to Mitch Williams of the Phillies, whose home run toss to Toronto's Joe Carter ended the 1993 World Series, the author explores how nine selected players became marked for life as baseball's scapegoats by the media and fans. Fred Merkle is twice marked, as he teamed with Fred Snodgrass to error a fly ball in the 1912 World Series, which led to the Giants' loss to Boston, and catcher Mickey Owens's pass ball sent the Dodgers to defeat against the Yankees in game 4 of the 1941 Series. Ralph Branca's home run pitch to Bobby Thompson in the final inning of the Dodgers-Giants playoff game for the 1951 National League pennant and the Red Sox' Bill Buckner's infamous lost grounder in 1986 also make the cut, as one would expect given the stakes at the time.

With these and some less notable scapegoats, the author analyzes details of the moment and of the play itself and includes the events leading to each player's unfortunate downfall. Bell also looks at media coverage and attitudes toward these players over some eighty-five years and notes that, while miscues were recorded on film during earlier days as they are now, players were chastised for their miscues only in the press and quickly forgotten. Today the filmed misdeeds of players are replayed and analyzed over and over, ensuring that the perpetrators will not be forgotten or forgiven.

While the author details the respective failings of his chosen gang of nine, he goes to great length to offset the new public reality to identify mitigating circumstances. In each case it was not the highlighted misdeed that alone caused a lost game or Series but was instead more of a team effort. For example, had another player not committed an error, walked or hit a batter, or given up a home run to extend an inning or the game, all results would have been different and those players marked as scapegoats would never have been immortalized.

The author also follows each player's later career and discusses the effect public scorn, media catcalls, and anonymous threats of violence because of one play had on their lives long after they left the game. With the exception of the knowledgeable baseball fan who can objectively place such incidents within the context of the entire game, the majority of fans see only that one fatal play and accept its magnitude based on the interpretation presented by an unforgiving media. In the end a scapegoat is identified, and it is his fate to be the one left standing when the music stops and the outcome of the game is only a statistic in the baseball encyclopedia.

This book is quite suitable for those with a solid interest in baseball history. It spans most of the twentieth century and includes little-known facts and events about teams, owners, and teammates of these fall guys that a casual reader may find tedious. Interestingly, the book's cover probably exacerbates the very issue of scapegoatism that Bell tries to defuse. The cover shows a photo, or more precisely a mug shot, of Bill Buckner with the word "Scapegoats" prominent above his head and holding a black name plate across his chest with the book's subtitle—all reminiscent of a wanted poster in the local post office. But despite the cover, after reading this book and learning the forgiving circumstances surrounding the dark moments...