Giants, Mets, Cardinals could be heading for tiebreakers

Despite the best efforts of their incendiary bullpen and inconsistent hitting, the Giants remain in the thick of the National League playoff race - mostly because their two competitors for the wild-card spots, the New York Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals, have been just as meh as the Giants. The three teams are, if not barreling, then shyly ambling toward a potentially frantic finish.

A convoluted three-way deadlock is not out of the realm of believability. A two-team tie for the second wild-card slot is distinctly possible. In either case, the Giants might have to play a 163rd or even a 164th regular-season tiebreaker for a chance to officially make the playoffs.

It wouldn’t be the first time. This franchise has been part of four tiebreakers in the past, twice while playing in New York and twice in San Francisco. And if history is our guide, we should be rooting for another this year against the Mets or Cardinals. The previous tiebreakers were highly entertaining.

THE CURSE OF MERKLE

In 1908, the Giants and Cubs finished atop the NL standings, each with the improbable record of 98-55-1. That’s because of what had happened on Sept. 23 of that year, when a 19-year-old Giant named Fred Merkle made one of the most infamous gaffes in baseball history.

You probably have heard of “Merkle’s Boner.” If not, Google it. We will skip the details here, except to say it resulted in a 1-1 tie between the Giants and Cubs, and set up a rematch at the Polo Grounds in upper Manhattan on Oct. 8.

That tiebreaker is far less celebrated than Merkle’s Boner. But 68 years after it was played, baseball historian Fred Lieb would call it the greatest game of the previous 100 years.

New York fans began milling around the stadium at daybreak for the?3 p.m. game and, according to published reports, the throng would eventually reach nearly 250,000. At one point, someone breached the wooden center field fence and people began pouring through the gap; the New York Fire Department repelled them with water hoses. Close to 40,000 fans were said to watch the game from Coogan’s Bluff and other free vantage points.

Giants pitcher Joe McGinnity and Cubs player-manager Frank Chance set the tone for the contest by getting into a fistfight during pregame warmups. As for the game, New York jumped to a 2-0 lead in the first inning. But Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown, the Madison Bumgarner of his day, relieved in the first and finished the game without giving up a run. Superstar Christy Mathewson pitched for the Giants, but his arm was dead and Chicago wound up winning 4-2.

The Cubs went on to capture the World Series title. They haven’t done it again in 108 years.

THE SHOT HEARD ‘ROUND THE WORLD

In 1951, the Giants had trailed the Brooklyn Dodgers by 13½ games in August before making a furious comeback. The hated rivals wound up tied for the National League crown with 96-58 records, necessitating a three-game tiebreaker series.

New York won the first game at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field, 3-1, in the first baseball game televised live from coast to coast. The Dodgers retaliated by bashing the Giants 10-0 at the Polo Grounds, setting up an all-or-nothing third extra game on Oct. 3.

It is arguably the most iconic game in MLB history. The Dodgers seemed Series-bound when they broke out for three runs in the eighth inning and took a 4-1 lead. But the Giants weren’t done. With one run in, one out and runners on second and third, Brooklyn manager Chuck Dressen yanked starter Don Newcombe and sent in reliever Ralph Branca to pitch to Bobby Thomson. On an 0-1 count, Thomson blasted his historic home run to left field, causing announcer Russ Hodges to lose his mind with exclamations of, “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!”

They did not win the World Series, though. They lost to that third New York team, the Yankees, in six games.

NEW TIME ZONE, SAME DEAL

By 1962, the Giants and Dodgers had relocated their dysfunctional relationship to California. It was the first year of the 162-game schedule, and each of these teams finished 101-61 after San Francisco made up four games in the final eight days of the regular season. Again, they would settle the pennant with a three-game tiebreaker series, and again it would come down to the final game.

Game 1 went to the Giants, an 8-0 romp at Candlestick Park as Willie Mays homered twice. Game 2 was epic. The teams played for 4 hours, 18 minutes at Dodger Stadium; at the time it was the longest nine-inning game in National League history. (The same old foes broke their record in 2001.) Los Angeles won on Ron Fairly’s sacrifice fly in the ninth against Mike McCormick, the Giants’ eighth pitcher. Game 3 was also in L.A., and the Giants won 6-4.

It was their first World Series appearance in San Francisco, and their last until 1989, but they fell to the Yankees in seven games.

TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE

Looking back, we recognize 1998 as the apotheosis of the steroid years. At the time, it looked like the summer that would save baseball, as St. Louis’ Mark McGwire and the Cubs’ Sammy Sosa traded swings in a home run orgy. McGwire won the MLB crown with a record 70 dingers that year, but it was Sosa (second with 66) who played into October.

The Cubs and Giants both finished the regular season 89-73, dead even in the race for the NL’s lone wild-card spot. They met Sept. 28 in a one-game tiebreaker at Wrigley Field for the right to play the Atlanta Braves.

San Francisco couldn’t solve Cubs starter Steve Trachsel or his first two relievers and fell behind 5-0. On the edge of elimination, though, the Giants began to claw their way back in the ninth inning. They scored three runs, but the last two came on consecutive outs by sluggers Barry Bonds and Jeff Kent, and Chicago closer Rod Beck got Joe Carter, in his final MLB at-bat, to pop up to end the game.

As the story goes, Bonds vowed after that ’98 season to do whatever it took, including the use of flaxseed oil, to overtake the power and celebrity of McGwire and Sosa.

Of course, that was back in the days when the Giants lost postseason series. They have now won 10 in a row, a trend that can continue in 2016 only if they find their way into the playoffs. Winning a tiebreaker would be one way to do that.