Tag Archives: Babe Ruth

Grover

Date: October 10, 1926

Yankee Stadium, 1926

Location: Yankee Stadium
Date: Game 7 of the World Series
Situation: Bottom of the 9th inning.
Cardinals 3, Yankees 2

“Old Pete” was on the mound. Again.

He had already pitched two complete nine-inning games, both victories for the Cardinals. In fact, one just the day before, 160 pitches. His manager, ‘The Rajah,’ had called on him to close the 7th. And here he was, still in the game — only three outs from history.

When he first emerged from the bullpen, his shoulders stooped, his face and eyes betrayed the previous night’s celebrations. [1] At 39, he had gray around his ears. He had battled epilepsy for years; a braggart by nature he seldom mentioned this – he concealed his concerns. Two professional decades of fastballs and curveballs had left his arm aching. His fastball no longer terrified hitters, but his wit, control, and crafty off-speed pitches kept him effective.

The temperature around 50 degrees, the sky dark gray and spitting rain. This did not help his “dead” arm, which now seemed to remember every pitch he’d ever thrown.

For all the accomplishments in his famed career, he had never yet been on a team that won the World Series.

Only three outs remained.
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His parents, John Alexander and Mary (Graham) Alexander were big fans of the President, Grover. So they named their eighth child (of eleven) and sixth son (of nine) after him: Grover Cleveland Alexander.

He was born on February 26, 1887 at home in tiny Elba, Nebraska. It’s a large agricultural region where canals direct water from the North Loup River to fields of corn, soybeans and wheat. The small family farms usually had livestock too: pigs and cows. Chickens rambled freely. All good food. And a few dogs to keep the place safe.

Elba had fewer than 100 people. He was probably delivered by a midwife or doctor from nearby St Paul, the Howard County seat, only 7 miles away. Some sources say he was born there, in St Paul, but that’s probably where the birthing assistant came from, and where his birth was registered.

Farm boys grow up strong. Life was demanding, unrelenting. The list of these who later starred is very long, including: Mickey Mantle, Cy Young, Bob Feller, Dale Harris, Stan Musial, Nolan Ryan – so many it boggles even the minds of baseball history aficionados. I once even did a piece on Tony Cloninger.

Many of Grover’s siblings died young, giving him an acute sense of mortality that would shadow him throughout his life. As a rural pastime, he was drawn to baseball in his youth; he showed extraordinary talent for pitching.

Alexander, 1917

As a teenager, he endured the minor but constant accidents of farm life—falls from wagons, bruised hands, and smashed fingers—that left him tough yet vulnerable to later injury. After excelling in high school baseball in St. Paul, he caught the attention of scouts, joined the world of professional baseball, and rose through semi-pro and the minor leagues.

Despite his talents and eye-popping performances, Grover came across as an ordinary, aw-shucks kind of guy. This earned him the nickname “Pete,” far more common than Grover or Grover Cleveland, and it stuck for life.

On June 22, 1909, while pitching for the Galesburg (IL) Boosters, Alexander was struck in the head by a line drive. Knocked unconscious, he left the game but returned to pitching days later. This early head trauma likely made him vulnerable to the epilepsy that would trouble him for life.

His rise to the majors was steady but marked by physical and personal challenges. Among them, he began self-medicating with alcohol—a frenemy he could neither fully embrace nor fully escape.

Despite this, Alexander’s talent was undeniable. After working through the minors, he debuted with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1911, quickly establishing himself as one of the league’s finest pitchers. Rookie of the Year awards did not exist yet, but his 37 complete games, 28 wins, 10 shutouts, and 1.85 ERA would have made him the clear candidate.

Over the next several seasons, he dominated. In 1915 and ’16 he won the pitching triple crown, leading the league in wins, ERA and strikeouts. By 1917, he had led the Phillies to the World Series, only to be swept by the White Sox.

Despite personal struggles, both public and personal, he became a household name: “Pete” Alexander, the pitcher whose control, velocity, wit, and crafty off-speed pitches could out think the best hitters in the league.

In 1918, Alexander enlisted in the Army and went to Europe to fight in World War I, rising to sergeant in the 342nd Field Artillery Regiment of the 89th Division. Heavy artillery service and repeated lifting, compounded by a shell explosion, caused further head trauma, permanent damage to his right arm and shoulder, hearing loss, lung irritation from mustard gas, and shell shock (now recognized as PTSD).

These wartime injuries worsened his epilepsy, making seizures—including tonic-clonic episodes—more frequent and severe. He was startled by every loud noise, irritable, suffered bouts of confusion, trembling, insomnia and sharp headaches. These all contributed to his reliance on alcohol and shaped the man who would later take the mound in the 1926 World Series.

In 1919, now with the Chicago Cubs, Alexander’s numbers began to drop off, mostly because he paced himself, not starting as many games. Age, the war and injuries made him change his style, relying less on his fastball and more on accuracy and speed changes. His nickname was now often “Old Pete.”

By 1926, his effectiveness and durability continued to wane, his ERA climbed (still respectable, just higher than before), and the Cubs were very mediocre – not bad, certainly not good. Now giving up more hits than innings pitched, and a shrinking strike out rate, he was clearly not the same pitcher as before the war. He was damaged goods. He’d not just been dealing with his pitching decline, he was having personal issues – exacerbated by his proclivity to over-imbibe, and an ever-edgier personality and repeated seizures.

The Cubs waived him.

The Cardinals – expecting to make a pennant and World Series run – picked him up. For the rest of the season he was effective, but not great.

The Cardinals did win the pennant, and faced the powerful and much favored American League Champs, the New York Yankees.

Alexander, 1925

Even though Old Pete had pitched a complete game victory in Game 3, after five games the Cards found themselves down three games to two. And the final two games were to be in Yankee Stadium: The House that Ruth built. To win it all they’d have to win both games.

As mentioned, in Game 6 Old Pete rose to the occasion, a complete game win, 3-2. The celebration went late into the night.

Game 7: one game for the championship.

Early on, in the 3rd inning, the Cards’ starter, Jesse Haines watched Babe Ruth put a 2-and-1 pitch in the right field bleachers. His 4th homer of the series. Old Pete was sent to the bullpen. Not so much as to warm up, but to watch other pitchers toss. Haines wiggled off with just one Yankee run scored. The next inning the Cards put up three, for a 3-1 lead.

The Yanks scored another in the bottom of the 6th, Cards up 3-2.

Haines faltered in the 7th, loading the bases with two outs. Next up was Tony Lazzeri, in the first year of a Hall of Fame career. It was only his rookie season, but he put up a very impressive 117 RBIs – on 18 homers. An RBI machine now at the plate with the bases loaded.

Player-manager Rogers Hornsby, who went by Rajah, sent a call to the bullpen. To Old Pete’s astonishment, the call was for him.

Old Pete pulled himself up from the bench (some players in the bullpen later said he had been dozing on and off since he arrived) and lumbered out to the mound.

He struck out Lazzeri on 4 pitches.

In the 8th the Yanks went three up, three down, all on weakly hit balls.

9th inning. Three outs to go for the championships.

It’s the top of the order, the strongest part. But the first two Yanks, Combs and Koenig are dispatched with weak grounders to third.

And the most feared hitter in all of baseball stepped to the plate. Babe Ruth. The Babe hit .378 that year, with an OBS of 1.252. Astronomical numbers.

The NY crowd, only restless until now, came to life with excitement. The Babe was up. This was his kind of situation.

Old Pete pitched carefully. Babe chased nothing. The count went to 3-2. The stadium hummed. Pete sent up a teaser, just outside at the top of the zone. Babe walked.

The right-handed hitter, and left fielder Bob Meusel, followed.[2] Meusel had had a solid 1926 season, batting .315.

Meusel swung at the first pitch and connected with nothing but air. Ruth, at first, felt like he got a good jump.

On the next pitch, also a swing and a miss, the Great Babe Ruth did one of the most astonishing things in all of baseball’s World Series history, an act that is still discussed.

He attempted to steal second base.

Ruth out

He’s always had surprising speed, but was never a great base stealer. Ruth thought he’d catch them off guard and put the tying run on second base.

He didn’t catch them off guard. Catcher Bob O’Farrell rifled a perfect throw to Player-Manager Rogers Hornsby. It wasn’t even close. [3] The Babe was out by a mile.

A “walk-off” caught stealing.

Grove Cleveland “Old Pete” Alexander had his World Series Championship.

His one and only, as it turned out.

Old Pete had one more sensational season in 1927, going 21-10 with a 2.52 ERA, and followed with a decent 16-9 record in 1928.

And then it was over, in 1928, at age 41, he managed a 9-8 record, on a reduced schedule, but tallied only 33 strikeouts in 132 innings.

After a miserable start to the 1930 season the Cards cut him loose on May 28 after 9 ineffective games, three of those starts.

He just could not give up the game. He joined a barnstorming team, mostly touring the Midwest, until 1938. By most accounts he remained effective (there were no statistics), even as he lost his pinpoint accuracy. He grew more irascible — likely due to progressing brain damage, and not helped by alcohol.

He and his wife, Aimee, divorced. Then re-married. Then divorced again.

His health began to fail quickly. The seizures grew more frequent. He could not give up the bottle. He grew unreliable, even though he was often Player-manager.

He drifted between low paying jobs: security guard, day laborer, ticket-taker at minor league games. He went from flop house to flop house. Friends later told of his trembles, confusion, seizures, and more than occasional inebriation.

On November 4, 1950, in a small, rented room in a boarding house in Saint Paul, Nebraska, Alexander suffered his last epileptic tonic-clonic seizure. Unconscious, he fell and struck his head. A cleaning lady found his body. He was 62 years old.

Despite epilepsy, a bum arm from war injuries, PTSD, brain trauma, personality issues and a devil of a drinking problem, Alexander achieved well beyond any requirements for the Hall of Fame.

He still holds the Major League record of ninety (90!) complete game shutouts. And the National League record with 373 wins. And that’s despite missing a season while serving in the Army during World War I.

And he never played in another World Series.

Joe Girard © 2025

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Footnotes.
[1] For decades Alexander denied that he was drunk or hungover that day. Over the years, Hornsby tended to corroborate. Stories from partying teammates generally go the other way. But they weren’t alarmed: this was common. Of course, Hornsby is also in the Hall, although as a player, not manager.
[2] Note: I’d always thought that Gehrig followed Ruth, but not this year. I surmise manager Miller Huggins, wanted to insert a solid right-handed hitter between the two powerful lefties to upset opposing teams’ strategy of whom to pitch in late innings of tight games, like this.

[3]  Afterward Ruth described his thought process regarding his attempted steal. Alexander was on fire; no one could manage a good swing. He’d retired every batter easily, except for the “semi-intentional” walk to him, Ruth. As he was on first base with two outs, he figured two hits would be required to score – nearly impossible with Alexander locked-in and on his game. But if he stole 2nd, then possibly only one hit would be needed to tie the game. With these facts, and Ruth a very experienced player by now, it’s difficult to argue that his attempt was totally illogical – which has been the trend over the decades since.

More:

Many will consider this just another baseball story. A guy blessed with talent, weak to the song of alcohol, and possessing edgy personality who did well and became famous, despite his efforts to dilute his own talent. Those people have likely not read this far.
It’s that story, yes, but much much more. A guy who faced emotional, psychological and physical struggles in an era with little medical knowledge of his strife, and no way to treat in.
A story of overcoming life’s crap and succeeding in spite of it all.

• An interesting factoid and coincidence: In 1952 a movie titled “The Winning Team” came out – a biographical film about Alexander. Alexander was named for a president. In the movie he was played by a future president: Ronald Reagan. A lovely 30-year old, Doris Day, played his wife Amee. Most critics think Reagan was miscast, as he was 41 at the time and the movie focused mostly on Alexander’s early pro years.
• It seems that Alexander and Amee had no children, and he was step-father to Amee’s biological daughter, Florena Mae Reagor.
• This story became close to me. Until my research I had no idea he struggled with epilepsy, brain damage, physical injuries, confusion and absence seizure trance-like blank-outs. Just the booze.
As an epileptic myself (controlled for years by medication) I can relate to the frustration, confusion and anger caused by severe seizures. Medically unmanaged, I cannot imagine how he managed to achieve so greatly.

Hall of Fame plaque
Ol’ Pete

The Great Grover Cleveland Alexander was elected to Baseball’s Hall of Fame in 1938.

 

Shore Up

See the source image

Ernie Shore, circa 1917

I haven’t written about Major League Baseball (MLB) this year until now.  I’m still a bit discouraged by all the new rules for covid, and those that  have carried over.  The game drifts farther and farther from the one I learned and loved as a child.  Strikeouts are now matter-of-fact; those numbers continue to soar.  Batting averages sink.  There is a controversy about this being linked to many pitchers illegally applying various substances to the balls to improve their grip. Is it that, or that every swing seems to be a “home run” swing?

But it’s still America’s game.  America’s great past time.  Old games stay in our memories, and in the record books.  Just as new stars and events make their ways into the same places.

Consider the phenom playing for the Los Angeles Angels, the once-in-a-century supremely talented Shohei Ohtani.  The Japanese star hits for extraordinary power and is also a starting pitcher.  His home run rate rivals that of Babe Ruth, the other most-famous pitcher-and-hitter; and, depending on how one calculates, Ohtani hits HRs more frequently than the Babe.  Both over his career and especially this year.

Like the Babe in the earlier part of his career, Ohtani is also an exceptionally good pitcher.  Stuck with a mediocre team, his win-loss record doesn’t accurately reflect his talents.  He has one of the fastest fastballs, and regularly throws at, or over, 100 miles per hour.  With a full assortment of pitches and deliveries – cutters, sliders, splitters, curves – he’s dropped his ERA this year to 2.70 and strikes out one-third of batters he faces; both are among MLB leaders.

Ohtani will be at the All-Star Game in Denver next month.  Many fans are looking forward to his participation in the Home Run Derby.

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I’ve written about amazing pitching performances in MLB history a few times, for example Can’t Touch This and Last At Bat.  104 years ago today, on June 23, 1917, an amazing pitching performance occurred that is sorta-kinda one of the most amazing No-Hitters and Perfect Games that don’t get recorded as such.

The man was Ernie Shore, a teammate of Babe Ruth’s on the Boston Red Sox.  He is linked to the Babe in other ways besides this particular game against the (first) Washington Senators. Both were earlier sold by the Baltimore Oriole organization to the Boston Red Sox in the same transaction.

[Later, before the 1920 season, the “BoSox” would sell Ruth, known at the time as “The Bambino” to their rival Yankees – even though he had helped lead them to three World Series wins. He was just too expensive and demanding. This became known as “The Curse of the Bambino”, since the BoSox, who had won 5 of the first 15 World Series, did not win another until 86 years later.  Meanwhile, the Yankees won 26 championships, or so, in the same time period.  They had won zero before acquiring Ruth.]

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Ernie Shore was a farm boy from the foothills of North Carolina, near North Bend. He was the 2nd of five boys born to Henry and Martha Shore; Ernie arriving in 1891. (My essay about farm boys in MLB here]. Ernie compiled a very respectable record during his four years alongside Ruth on those Red Sox teams, going 58-33.  He also went 3-1 in four World Series starts, helping the BoSoxraves win back-to-back WS victories in 1915 and ’16.

[The Sox won another World Series in 1918, this time without Shore, as he had enlisted in the military to fight in World War 1. When Shore returned, he too, like Ruth, was dealt to the Yankees].

Fenway, pre-Green Monster

The day was June 23, 1917.  Exactly 104 years ago as I write this. World War 1 raged in Europe.  Bodies fell and blood flowed across Flanders.  Fenway Park, the now famous home of the Boston Red Sox, was barely 5 years old.  Its iconic “Green Monster” left field wall was in place, but that nickname came later.  Then, it was just “The Wall”, put up to keep fans and freeloaders off the field.  There were rows of fans in front of the wall.

The woeful Washington Senators were in town for a 5-game series against the Sox, which would include two double-headers.  Such long multi-game series and double-headers (especially on Saturdays) were more common back then, since travel was very  inconvenient.  One of those double-headers might have been a makeup from a weather-caused postponement earlier.

On this fine Saturday, Babe Ruth was the starting pitcher for the Red Sox in the first game of a double-header.  The game’s first batter walked; he was the Senators’ Ray Morgan, a swift-footed second baseman.  Ruth thought both balls 3 and 4 should have been strikes, and he let the umpire know how he felt in no uncertain terms.  In fact, by many reports, the dispute came to blows. Ruth was ejected from the game. So was the Red Sox’s catcher, Pinch Thomas.

Without warmup or warning, Ernie Shore, who was likely scheduled to pitch the backend of the double-header, was called in to pitch.  Sam Agnew, a part-time catcher, substituted for Pinch Thomas.

The situation seemed rather frenetic, and thus opportunistic, to Morgan.  What with the dustup between Ruth and home plate umpire Brick Owens,  the sudden pitching change, and the sudden catcher change, this seemed like a good time to try and steal second base as soon as possible.

He did try.  The new catcher, Agnew, fired the ball across the diamond to second baseman Jack Barry, who then tagged out Morgan.  It was not a good opportunity.

Morgan was the last baserunner the Senators had the entire game.  Ernie Shore retired every batter; 26 up, 26 down.  The Red Sox went on to win, 4-0.   By the way, substitute catcher Agnew went 3 for 3, and knocked in two of the Red Sox’s runs.

This game used to be listed among MLB’s individual no-hitters and perfect games.  But the rules for such things were “shored up” (sorry, pun intended).  It’s now just an interesting game and one of those baseball oddities.  Maybe it wins you a few bar bets.  It is listed now as a “combined no-hitter.”  Babe Ruth steals the headline again.

After World War 1 Shore resumed his career, now with the Yankees.  However, during the winter of 1918-19 he caught a bad bug from his Navy roommate. Perhaps it was the Spanish Flu.  He was bedridden for weeks. It greatly weakened him.  He had a subpar 1919 season by his standards.  He rested and trained for 1920, but the arm strength just wasn’t there. He was sent to the minors in 1921.  He languished there a few seasons, then retired.  He then tried coaching for a while, but Shore didn’t have the body or the heart for baseball anymore.

He moved back to his native North Carolina.  He got married, raised a family, got involved in local youth sports and politics.  He was even sheriff of Forsythe County for 36 years.

Ernie, Thanks for the memories. We might forget you, but the history books will not.

Joe Girard © 2021

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