Scott, two things:

(1) Could we go with Merkles instead of Buckners? I mean, Bill's really taken a lot of heat since '86 and most of it is really undeserved. Merkle was the originator of messing up a big game. I guess that ruins the metaphor, though.

(2 and this is just nitpicking) Prepositions don't belong at the end of the sentence.

If they are Buckners, then the end result would be the same with or without them screwing up. Is that what we're going for?

The end result would probably be the same, but I don't know if that's something you'd want to count on. In any case, I agree that it's a complete mystery what the voters (Buckners, Merkles...) are up to.

Add my voice to those asking to reconsider using Bill Buckner as a standard of ineptitude. He's suffered enough and had a good career and wasn't to blame anyway (Stanley might not have gotten to the bag to cover, the game was already tied, the Red Sox bullpen was cooked so it was just a matter of time, he shouldn't have even been there in the first place, blah blah blah). How about using the word Yawkey instead? The former Red Sox owner is not only one of the more dubious Hall of Fame inductees, he also neglected to sign Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays when he had the chance, choices as stupid and bias-ridden as any the voters have ever made.

I actually considered using Merkle, but when you mention Fred's boner to most baseball fans, they think you're discussing a Flintstone porno.
This is why I used Buckner. Ask Dr. Mudd about how helping John Wilkes Booth ended up being a big net negative to his last name. It is unfair, I will agree.

In regards to grammar, I really try, but let's keep in mind this is a blog and I do not have an editor or a proofreader. I'm always open to public editing, though I would really prefer if you could send these comments to my email at
scott@scottlongonline.com

I have certain strengths as a writer, but unfortunately grammar ain't one of them.

Hm. Well, Scott, (i) there isn't really anything wrong with ending a sentence with a preposition (except that some readers will think it's wrong). For instance, look here

tinyurl.com/yuluqn

to see what linguists have to say about Dryden's peculiar critique of Ben Jonson.

And (ii), 'outside' in your sentence wasn't a preposition. It was a noun. (If it were a preposition, it would very, very strange and obviously ungrammatical to slap that 'the' on the front of it.)

In 3 I was playing along with Eric's joke in 2 , by the way.

5

Ask Dr. Mudd about how helping John Wilkes Booth ended up being a big net negative to his last name. It is unfair, I will agree.

Dr. Mudd probably would feel okay about it, considering the fact that the phrase "his name is mud" was around for at least 45 years before Booth shot Lincoln.

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_293.html

Merkle's probably even less appropriate than Buckner.

Buckner gets far too much of the blame that should go to McNamara and Schiraldi - but he did make a brutal error.

Merkle just did what everyone else did in the same situation. It was common practice to head for the clubhouses in center field when the winning run crossed the plate - epsecially when the crowd swarmed onto the field, as they did that day.

But Johnny Evers had spoken to Hank O'Day about that situation some weeks earlier, and when Evers appealed to him, O'Day called Merkle out.

There was a lot more pandemonium involved, but that was the basic story. Merkle took a lot worse than Buckner did.

How about calling them Snodgrasses?

6 Churchill pretty well buried that "rule" when he said that ending a sentence with a preposition is the sort of English "up with which I will not put."

There's also an old joke: A freshman at a stuffy Ivy League school asked an upper classman, "Can you tell me where the library is at?" The uppper classman said snootily, "Here we do not end out sentences with prepositions." "Fine," said the freshman, "can you tell me where the library is at, asshole?"

Thanks JL25and3 for the suggestion. To keep away from prepositions I will try to end all of my sentences with the word asshole. Actually, it seems very natural to me and I think it fits a lot of the subjects I discuss. Thanks again, asshole.

Love the straight dope and while I don't try to pretend that it wasn't used before Dr. Mudd, I bet that if you researched it the phrase really took hold after he was the anti-Florence Nightingale and his name became infamous.

How about we call 'em Buckners Boners?

Since "it's a complete mystery what the voters are up to", and with the attempt to keep the reference relatively recent, perhaps they should be referred to as the Littles.

Let's call them Neidenfuers