Fred C. Merkle was born in Watertown, Wisconsin, on Dec. 20, 1888, while his father, Ernst Merkle, was a school teacher at Immanuel Lutheran School there. He made his major league debut on 9-21-1907, and his outstanding talent, intelligence, and dedication to baseball spanned three decades. He was a member of six World Series teams in 1911, 1912, 1913, 1916, 1918, and 1926. He was a potent line-drive hitter, an agile first baseman, and a speedster on the basepaths, and he played for the New York Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, and New York Yankees.