Talking Sports: Honoring 'Ol Pete' 128 years later

Grover Cleveland Alexander was born, raised and died in Nebraska. If you’re a baseball fan with just a rudimentary knowledge of the game’s history, you’ve heard of Alexander.

In honor of today being the 128th anniversary of Alexander’s birth, this space revisits the great Nebraskan right-hander. He is rated third by the Omaha World Herald on its “Nebraska’s Top 100 Athletes” list. Only great’s Bob Gibson and Gayle Sayers are ahead of him. While there are lots of other great athletes on the list, maybe none were so gritty or tortured as Alexander.

For some reason he was called “Ol Pete” in his...