Merullo is an heirloom today, with or without his scar. When his former teammate Andy Pafko died last year, Merullo became the last surviving player from the 1945 Cubs. By virtue of the team’s futility, he is the only living ballplayer to have worn a Cubs uniform in the World Series, a bittersweet distinction for both Merullo and surely the generations of long-suffering Cubs fans like him.

“I guess that makes me famous,” he said with a chuckle. “But, oh boy, I’d sure like to see them win one.”

On a recent spring afternoon, seated beside his sons Dave and Len, who is known as Boots, he let a nostalgic grin cross his face while remembering that World Series even though his Cubs fell to the Detroit Tigers in seven games. World War II had just ended and Philip K. Wrigley, the Cubs’ owner, gave a party for the team on a steamer moored in Lake Michigan to celebrate the pennant.

After starting for much of the season at shortstop, Merullo was hitless in his only two at-bats in the World Series. But he was on the field as a 10th-inning substitute when Joe Hoover, who had singled with two outs in a 7-7 game, was caught stealing second in the top of the 12th inning of Game 6.

Image Merullo has a newspaper clipping of his fight with the Dodgers' Eddie Stanky. Credit... Bryce Vickmark for The New York Times

“He was spikes-high and I was going to get the tag down,” Merullo said.

The Cubs won, 8-7, in 12 innings, but fell, 9-3, in Game 7 at Wrigley Field the next afternoon. They have not been back to the World Series since, and last won the championship in 1908. The drought is especially painful when contrasted with the team that is visiting Wrigley Field on Tuesday: the Yankees, who have played in 26 World Series since 1945, winning 17.