An oops for the ages

 Somewhere today Fred Merkle is throwing a spectral arm around Orion Kerkering's shoulders and saying, "Don't sweat it, son. No one will remember this."

Then he'll laugh and add: "Just kidding. No one's ever gonna forget this. And not just because your parents named you 'Orion.'"

That's because last night, with the season in the balance, Orion Kerkering, a relief pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies, pulled a Fred Merkle. And every baseball fan worth the name knows instantly what that means. 

It means even after 117 years, every baseball fan worth the name remembers what Fred Merkle of the Giants did on a late September day in 1908. Locked up in a death struggle with the Chicago Cubs, Merkle cost the Jints a crucial victory over their rivals when, after an apparent game-winning single, he veered off and headed to the dugout rather than finishing his jaunt to second base.

By failing to touch second, he was ruled to have made the third out of the inning, and the game remained tied 1-1. Called because of darkness, the Cubs won it the next day, wound up tied with the Giants for the NL pennant, and ultimately went to the World Series after beating the Giants again in a one-game playoff.

Forever after, the notorious blunder was known as Merkle's Boner. It was a dark cloud that followed him for the rest of his days as a player.

Orion Kerkering?

His blunder was throwing the ball halfway to, well, Orion on a slow roller in the 11th inning, with the Phillies and Dodgers tied and the bases loaded. It allowed the Dodgers to score the winning run in Game 4 of the NLDS, and win the best-of-five series 3-1.

Everyone was going when Andy Pages' broken-bat squib glanced off Kerkering's foot, and panic swallowed him up. Rather than going to first for the out, he tried a hurried throw home, and it eluded catcher J.T. Realmuto by roughly ten light years.

Game, set, match to the Dodgers.

"Just a horses**t throw," Kerkering said in the postgame, manning up.

He can take solace in the fact that, no, everyone likely won't remember his oops-for-the-ages for, um, ages, the way everyone remembers Fred Merkle's. That's because baseball doesn't consumer America the way it did back in the old-timey days. Nowadays it's pro football that does that.

Which is why talk radio in Philly today likely will have a lot more folks griping about the Eagles getting rinse-cycled by the Giants last night ("34-17? To the bleeping Giants? What the hell was THAT?") than by Orion Kerkering.

Unique name or no unique name.