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 day though nobody really knows why. Even when describing his exploits on the mound, the Sidney Telegraph stories would refer to him occasionally as Pete in one form or another. Those he grew up with were reported to have called him “Dode.” History hasn’t managed to solve that mystery either.

He was on the mound for three games of the 1926 World Series between the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Cardinals. The ‘26 series was one of the more exciting series in the history of that championship, but seldom remembered today. About all many recall of the contest, was that Game 7 concluded when none other than the great Babe Ruth was thrown out attempting to steal.

Ruth later said he thought the move would surprise St. Louis. Maybe it did. It probably did. But he was still out by 10 feet.

If you lived in Sidney at the time you were probably rooting for the Cardinals. And you would’ve had no trouble keeping up with the action as the Telegraph reported on the series daily – on some occasions with front-page headlines.

Aside from being among the greats of all time, Alexander was a war hero of sorts. He didn’t single-handedly take some hill to save the lives of dozens of his men or wipe out an entire company of enemy combatants. But when summoned by his country for service in World War I, he answered.

Like so many before and after, Alexander paid a heavy price in war – even, perhaps, if not so dear a price as millions of others. He served in France during “the war to end all wars” as a sergeant in the 342nd Field Artillary Unit.

Alexander was rendered nearly deaf in one ear during seven weeks on the front lines. When it was over, Alexander was shell shocked. Already a drinker, his kinship with the bottle increased. Still, he returned to the States to continue – with much the same brilliance as before the war – to pitch in the major leagues.

Considered washed up, he was unceremoniously dumped for the waiver price in the middle of the 1926 season by the Chicago Cubs. The Cards took a chance on the 39-year-old “has been.” Perhaps Red Birds Manager Rogers Hornsby thought his experience might be a useful asset during the pennant drive that year. Whatever Hornsby expected, he certainly got more than he bargained for.

In 1926, you could buy a new Ford Touring car for $469.22 at Sidney Motor Sales Co. If a Coupe was more your style, $582.74 was the asking price. At J.B. Byars Co. in Sidney, Ladies Outing Gowns could be had for the paltry sum of 98 cents to $1.95. Of course they “were light and very pretty.”

Even if you missed the ad giving notice that baby beef steak could be had for 22 cents per pound at Central Market, you couldn’t miss the Telegraph’s headlines touting the exploits of Nebraska’s favorite son.

“Grover Cleveland Alexander, one of baseball’s old masters, unleashed the mighty power of his ancient right arm to pitch the Cardinals to victory over the Yankees Sunday in the second game of the World’s Series before the greatest crowd that ever saw a ball game,” gushed the Telegraph on Oct. 5, 1926.

As the Cardinals “clouted Urban Shocker, Yankee spitball ace,” Alexander was masterful in pitching a compete game, 6-2 victory to even the series.

“The gray thatched, rawboned Alexander – ‘the man who was sold down the river’ late in the season as a Cub discard,” held the Yanks hitless over the final six innings. He struck out 10, yielded just four hits and held Lou Gehrig and Ruth hitless in seven at bats.

Six days later the National Leaguer’s found themselves down 3 games to 2, and facing a must-win game in front of another packed house at Yankee Stadium. After one inning, the Birds offense staked the grizzled veteran to a 3-0 lead. Turns out, that’s all he needed.

“The big baseball series is all even again because old Grover Cleveland Alexander stepped into a youthful role for the second time in a week and beat the Yankees Saturday,” touted the Telegraph. Though earlier in the series Ruth had broken seven series hitting records while hitting three home runs in one game, he failed to get out of the infield against Alexander in Game 6.

After two complete-game victories, Alexander had surely done all that could be expected of his “ancient arm.” While it was reported that Alexander had been drinking the night before Game 7, what did it really matter. Certainly Hornsby would have no occasion to use him again.

But with two outs and the bases loaded in the seventh inning and the Red Birds holding a precarious 3-2 lead in the deciding game, Hornsby found he could call on no other. Hornsby summoned the veteran for one more go in relief of Jesse Haines. Facing a dangerous assignment against the sensational rookie Tony Lazerri, who would one day join Alexander in the Hall of Fame, the old man dug in against the powerful kid.

Though Lazerri drove a home-run distance foul ball on the second pitch, Alexander ultimately finished him off with three strikes. Alexander came out again for the final two innings, with his only blemish being a walk to Ruth in the ninth. As the Telegraph put it, “The stalwart Nebraskan stepped into the breach, with already two victories behind him.” Of course, some of us remembered more what Ruth did in the final inning more so than what Alexander did.

Had Alexander been pitching in a modern series he would have earned a save for his performance. A likely series MVP award would have come his way as well.

Had their been an MVP award then, who knows, maybe he would have been presented with a $644.18 1927 Ford Fordor – with starter and balloon tires as standard equipment, of course.