What Inning Is it Anyway?

Nyjer Morgan finally realizes he hit the game-winner.

Baseball seasons are long and every so often a player's mind wanders and a boneheaded play results. Benny Agbayani flipping the ball into the stands with only two outs comes to mind. The errant toss let two San Francisco Giant's runners score in the August 2000 game. The Mets managed to win anyway.

Rarely do such brain locks result in anything positive for the player of his team. The most famous mistake by a player, Fred Merkle, has forever been known as Merkle's Boner, in which the New York Giants' player forgot to touch second base at the end of a key 1908 game. (The ruling led to the Chicago Cubs last World Series winning team.) Although Merkle was following common practice, he was still called out on the play.

Nyjer Morgan of the Milwaukee Brewers just have might have pulled off such a feat last night. The center fielder came to bat in the bottom of the ninth with a runner on second and the score tied. Morgan lashed a double down the right field line. Morgan's teammates streamed out to second base to congratulate him.

Morgan was confused. Turns out he thought it was the eighth inning and admitted he might have been more relaxed because of his mistake. Maybe the folks who run the Miller Park scoreboard will just misnumber the innings in similar situations in the future; call it a new kind of home field advantage.