1926 World Champions

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The Story | Season Highlights | W.S. Opponent | Game Summaries | Series Box Score | Series MVP | World Series Program

The Story of the 1926 Championship Season

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1926 Regular Season Highlights

Regular Season Pitching Performances

Team Accomplishments

Individual Accomplishments

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World Series Opponent

1926 Murderer's Row

The Yankees of 1926 welcomed back Babe Ruth, who had missed most of the  1925 season due to health problems and suspension.  They proceeded to lead the league in slugging and runs scored, just like the Cardinals.  

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Game Summaries

[Scorecards of each game are available by clicking NYY or STL in the line scores]

October 2 at New York (attendance: 61,658)

Cardinals Starter: Willie Sherdel (LHP), 16-12

Yankees Starter: Herb Pennock (LHP), 23-11

BOX SCORE

 

STL	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		1	3	1
NYY	1	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	X		2	6	0

Homeruns: none

WP: Pennock (1-0)

LP: Sherdel (0-1)

Yankees lead Series 1-0

Highlights:

Pennock pitched a 3-hitter in the series opener.  After allowing a single run in the first, he completely shut down the Cards until allowing a hit in the ninth.

The Cardinals' Sherdel also pitched quite effectively, except for three walks in the first inning, and a hit, sacrifice, hit sandwich in the sixth that brought in enough runs to beat him.

October 3 at New York (attendance: 63,600)

Cardinals Starter: Grover Cleveland Alexander (RHP), 9-7

Yankees Starter: Urban Shocker (RHP), 19-11

BOX SCORE

 

STL	0	0	2	0	0	0	3	0	1		6	12	1
NYY	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		2	4	0

Homeruns: Southworth - St. Louis, Thevenow - St. Louis

WP: Alexander (1-0)

LP: Shocker (0-1)

Series tied 1-1

Highlights:

After falling behind 2-0 in the second inning, Alex settled down and began displaying the form that had earned him his own special pew in the history of pitching.  From the third inning on, he completely dominated the Yankees, striking out a total of 10 and allowing only one single after the 2-run second.  Snapping off his sharp-breaking curves with immaculate precision, he retired the last 21 batters he faced.  With the score tied in the 7th, Southworth hit a three-run homer.  Shortstop Tommy Thevenow also homered.

October 5 at Saint Louis (attendance: 37,708)

Yankees Starter: "Dutch" Ruether (LHP), 14-9

Cardinals Starter: Jesse Haines (RHP), 13-4

BOX SCORE

 

NYY	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		0	5	1
STL	0	0	0	3	1	0	0	0	0		4	8	0

Homeruns: Haines - St. Louis

WP: Haines (1-0)

LP: Ruether (0-1)

St. Louis leads Series 2-1

Highlights:

For their first home game since August, this was the Cardinals' triumphant homecoming, and in honor of their hero's return the city again turned on the emotional faucets.  The front page of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat included these resounding headlines: "Tumultuous Thousands Welcome Cardinals," and "Greatest Demonstration in City's Baseball History as Frenzied Multitudes Lionize Baseball Heroes Amid Bedlam of Noise and Joyous Enthusiasm."  The outpouring occurred during an open-car ticker-tape parade.  "Remember now," Les Bell said, "this was right in the middle of things.  I asked Sherdel what would happen if we son the Series."  " 'The whole city is going to jump into the Mississippi,' he said."

Clutch performances don't get much bigger than Jesse Haines' Game 3 performance.  He pitched a gem of a game, throwing a 5-hit shutout.  But that wasn't enough.  He added a 2-run homerun during the 3-run fourth inning.

October 6 at Saint Louis (attendance: 38,825)

Yankees Starter: Waite Hoyt (RHP), 16-12

Cardinals Starter: Flint Rhem (RHP), 20-7

BOX SCORE

 

NYY	1	0	1	1	4	2	1	0	0		10	14	1
STL	1	0	0	3	0	0	0	0	1		5	14	0

Homeruns: Ruth (3) - New York

WP: Hoyt (1-0)

LP: Reinhart (0-1)

Series tied 2-2

Highlights:

New York's big bats finally awoke in Game 4.  Five Yankees doubled, and Babe Ruth hit three homeruns (still a World Series record), in a 10-run shellacking of five different Cardinal pitchers.  The Cards also recorded 14 hits, all off Hoyt, but 12 were singles so only five runs scored.

October 7 at Saint Louis (attendance: 39,552)

Yankees Starter: Herb Pennock (LHP), 23-11

Cardinals Starter: Willie Sherdel (LHP), 16-12

BOX SCORE

 

NYY	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	1	3	9	1
STL	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	2	7	1

Homeruns: none

WP: Pennock (2-0)

LP: Sherdel (0-2)

New York leads Series 3-2

Highlights:

Game 5 was an amazing pitcher's duel, a re-match of Game 1.  Both pitchers had given up two runs in nine innings.  But in the top of the tenth inning, rookie Tony Lazzeri's sacrifice fly gave New York a 3-2 lead.  Pennock successfully pitched the tenth inning to preserve the victory.

October 9 at New York (attendance: 48,615)

Cardinals Starter: Grover Cleveland Alexander (RHP), 9-7

Yankees Starter: Bob Shawkey (RHP), 8-7

BOX SCORE

 

STL	3	0	0	0	1	0	5	0	1		10	13	2
NYY	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0		2	8	1

Homeruns: Bell - St. Louis

WP: Alexander (2-0)

LP: Shawkey (0-1)

Series tied 3-3

Highlights:

The Cards called on their seasoned veteran Alexander again, and boy did he deliver.  He held the Yanks to 2 run, while Les Bell drove in four runs with a first-inning single, and a seventh-inning homerun.

October 10 at New York (attendance: 38,093)

Cardinals Starter: Jesse Haines (RHP), 13-4

Yankees Starter: Waite Hoyt (RHP), 16-12

BOX SCORE

 

STL	0	0	0	3	0	0	0	0	0		3	8	0
NYY	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	0		2	8	3

Homeruns: Ruth - New York

WP: Haines (2-0)

LP: Hoyt (1-1)

St. Louis wins the Series 4-3

Highlights:

The 40-year-old Alexander had pitched nine innings the day before; nevertheless, with the team facing the season's critical moment, not even Rogers Hornsby could resist the allure of Grover Cleveland Alexander.  There were younger and stronger pitchers available to him, but the skipper wanted Alex.

The moment has come down to us wreathed in mists of legend:  Alexander had been drinking the night before and been sleeping in the bullpen when the call came; Hornsby walked out to short left field to meet him, to see if the old boy's eyes were clear; Alexander was hung over.  Bell denied that the legend is true, instead saying "...Alex wasn't hung over - he stood there and told us exactly how he was going to pitch Lazzeri and his mind was sharp as a tack."

The plan was to tempt Lazzeri with an inside fastball, which Tony would pull foul; and then Alex would throw un-hittable curves low and away.  And this is exactly what happened.  Lazzeri pulled the fastball foul, then went down swinging on two sharp, back-breaking curveballs, just as Alexander the craftsman supreme had planned.  The tense confrontation had more than drama in it, it also had romance and symbolism:  the hard-hitting Lazzeri was a rookie - one writer described Tony as "pawing nervously at the dirt with his toe" and then "taking muscular practice swings" as he waited for Alexander to complete a long, deliberately slow walk from the bullpen to the mound.  For Alexander, battered by alcoholism and epilepsy, his spirit shattered and tormented by World War cannon fire, it was the theft of a moment from time just as his career had begun to slide over the horizon.

But after the crucial strikeout, Alex still continued on.  He got through the 8th unblemished, then retired the first two batters in the ninth, but then came to Ruth, who in a one-run game was pure menace.  Pitching carefully to Ruth, Alex walked him.  With Alex pitching to Meusel, Ruth, in what has been described as "the only mistake he ever made on a baseball diamond," inexplicably tried to steal second base.  O'Farrell's on-the-money peg to Hornsby shot down the great man and the Cardinals were world Champions!

St. Louis' euphoria lasted for just two months; to be precise, until December 20.  That was the day Roger Hornsby was traded to the New York Giants.

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Series Composite Box Score

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Series MVP

Grover Cleveland "Pete" Alexander may not have been the only ballplayer named after a seated U.S. president. But he was the only one to be later portrayed in the movies by a future one, when Hollywood's Ronald Reagan played Alexander in the 1952 motion picture, The Winning Team.

The Nebraska-born Alexander was one of 13 children, 12 of them boys. He could throw a rock faster and straighter than any of them. After he'd traded rocks for baseballs he played semipro ball. In 1907, at age 22, he was first tendered a professional contract for $50 per month with Galesburg, Illinois, of the Central Association. He posted a fine first season, going 15-8, but his debut was marred by a beaning that may have contributed to the bouts of epilepsy that afflicted him later in life. While trying to break up a double play he took a rival shortstop's relay throw squarely on the head and did not regain consciousness for two days.

Although he felt dizzy for the remainder of the season, his condition did not inhibit the top-level American Association Indianapolis Indians from acquiring him. But when his pitch plunked the manager in batting practice and broke three of his ribs, the club sent Alexander packing.

Alexander recovered sufficiently in 1910 to win 29 games and pitch a phenomenal 15 shutouts for the Syracuse Stars of the Class B New York State League. They sold him to the Philadelphia Phillies at the bargain price of $750.

Alexander's Philadelphia baptism came that same fall in the postseason City Series, at that time an annual institution, against the crosstown rival Athletics, who had been crowned world champions the previous year. "You'll pitch five innings," Manager Pat Moran warned. "They'll be murder, but you'll learn something." Moran was half right. There was learning to be done, but the rookie did the schooling, giving up no runs, no walks, and no hits.

Alexander's first full season proved the value of the investment, as he broke in like few rookies before or since. Throwing for the fourth-place Phils he paced the league with 28 wins, 31 complete games, seven shutouts, 367 innings pitched, and the lowest opponent batting average, at .219. Four of his shutouts were in succession, including a 12-inning, one-hit, 1-0 victory over the immortal Cy Young. Alexander finished second in strikeouts and strikeouts per game and fourth in ERA. His 28 wins remain the modern freshman record.

But "Pistol Pete" was just getting started. From 1915 to 1917 he enjoyed seasons as good as any ever posted, winning 31, 33, and 30 games, with ERAs of 1.22, 1.55, and 1.83, respectively. Only Alexander won the pitching Triple Crown, wins, ERA, and strikeouts, three years running. No one has since pitched more than the 38 complete games Alexander recorded in 1916. No one has since surpassed his 33 wins in 1916. And only one man, Bob Gibson in 1968, has since bettered Alexander's 1.22 ERA of 1915. As if to cap this awesome three-year display, Alexander won a September 1917 Labor Day doubleheader at Ebbets Field, defeating Brooklyn, 5-0 and 7-3.

In 1915 he had led the Phils to their first pennant of the modern era. He threw four one-hitters that year, another record, all the while pitching in the tiny Baker Bowl, with its seemingly miniscule distance between first base and the right-field wall. Overall, he tossed 16 one-hitters in his career, although he never recorded a no-hitter. "Alex was really an amazing pitcher," Phils teammate Hans Lobert recalled. "He had little short fingers and he threw a very heavy ball. Once, later on, when I'd moved to the Giants, Alex hit me over the heart with a pitched ball and it bore in like a lump of lead·. I couldn't get my breath for ten minutes afterwards."

The Phillies unexpectedly sold Alexander and catcher Reindeer Bill Killefer to the Chicago Cubs after the 1917 season for $60,000. The Phils feared that both would be lost to the military draft. Alexander spent most of the 1918 season with General Pershing's American Expeditionary Force in France, where he served as a sergeant in the artillery and suffered from shell shock. He returned home with a partial loss of hearing and ever-worsening seizures.

He had long endured his epilepsy, but following his wartime duty his condition worsened. And epilepsy was just one of Alex's problems. Drinking was another, and it persisted even more severely after Armistice Day. "His face looked like a piece of raw meat in the later stages of his career," one observer wrote, "and his managers often had to check with his teammates to see if they thought old Pete could make it that day."

Nonetheless, Alexander was a more than reasonably effective hurler for the Cubs. Twice he won more than 20 games. In 1920 he achieved another Triple Crown. On June 22, 1926, however, the Cubs gave up on him. Manager Joe McCarthy tired of Alexander's bouts with the bottle and his perceived insubordination and sold Alexander to the Cardinals for the $4,000 waiver price.

In St. Louis Alexander proved he still had some pitching in him. His most dramatic moment came not long after the trade, in the seventh game of the 1926 World Series. He had already pitched complete game victories in Games 2 and 6. In Game 7 on Sunday, October 10, at cavernous Yankee Stadium, the score was 3-2 in favor of the Cardinals, when St. Louis starter Jesse "Pop" Haines developed a blister on his finger and had to be removed from the game in the seventh inning. Cards Manager Rogers Hornsby summoned Alexander from the bullpen. True to form, Alexander had not quite recovered from celebrating his victory of the previous day. He had to be shaken awake.

When Alexander took the mound, the bases were loaded with two men out. At bat was Yankee second baseman Tony Lazzeri. St. Louis catcher Bob O'Farrell advised Alexander to take his time with the New York slugger. The pitcher was known for his rapid-fire delivery, and had pitched one of his one-hitters in just an hour and nine minutes.

The first pitch was a curve. Lazzeri took a powerful swing, and missed. O'Farrell then guessed that Lazzeri, who had gone 0-for-4 against Alexander the day before, would be expecting another curve. He called for a fastball. Alexander threw it inside, and Lazzeri launched a tremendous drive into the stands, but it tailed foul. O'Farrell again put down two fingers for the curve. "Lazzeri swung where that curve started but not where it finished," Alexander recalled. "The ball got a hunk of the corner and then finished outside." Mighty Tony had struck out.

Alexander went on to finish the game and nail down the Cardinals' first World Series. Afterward, he downplayed his achievement. "If that line drive Lazzeri hit had been fair, Tony would be the hero, and I'd just be an old bum."

As Lazzeri's whiff was not the end of the game, neither was it the conclusion of Alexander's career. He won 21 games for the Cards in 1927, and still drinking heavily, he made another Fall Classic appearance against the Yankees in 1928. Before the second game the woozy pitcher was asked to pose shaking hands with opposing starter Yankee George Pipgras. Alexander reached into thin air and totally missed Pipgras's hand.

After tiring of his benders the Cards released Alexander at the end of the 1929 season. He signed with the woeful Phillies, but "Alexander the Great" had nothing left to give. He was the weak link in a monumentally dreadful pitching staff and was released again. He pitched briefly in the Texas League, then hooked up with the barnstorming Cuban House of David, pitching for the bearded wonders until 1938.

After retiring from baseball Grover Cleveland Alexander lived from hand to mouth, debilitated by even worse bouts of alcoholism and epilepsy. His 1938 induction into Baseball's Hall of Fame and the plaque that came with it brought him little solace. "You know I can't eat tablets or nicely framed awards," he told Fred Lieb. "Neither can my wife. But they don't think of things like that."

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