Harry Clay Pulliam (February 9, 1869 – July 29, 1909) was an American baseball executive who served as the sixth President of the National League.

Early in his life, his father, a tobacco businessman, moved the family to Louisville,[2] where he attended public schools.

[3] In the late 1880s, after working for newspapers in California, Pulliam became a reporter for the Louisville Commercial,[2] He quickly advanced through the ranks, and was considered one of the leading authorities on the game and history of baseball.

Soon after receiving a promotion to City Editor of the Commercial, he met the owner of the Louisville Colonels, Barney Dreyfuss.

Home plate umpire Hank O'Day deemed it impossible to restore order on the field to resume the game, and ruled that the run did not count.

The play was reviewed by the National League Board of Directors during a special session held in Cincinnati.

The board's report issued on October 6, 1908, upheld Pulliam's decision and unsparingly castigated Merkle for his "stupid play"—a "reckless, careless, inexcusable blunder.

In fact, this quote of Pulliam's was printed in a New York Times article in 1922, thirteen years after his death.

[3] Harry Pulliam is a central character in the historical novel Called Out: A novel of base ball and America in 1908 by Floyd Sullivan (Amika Press, 2017), which features a fictionalized account of the key events of his life and death during the years 1908 and 1909.