Wooden War

After tremendous ballyhoo, the world series, a war of bats, began --New York against St. Louis, the Yankees against the Cardinals, in New York.

First Game. It was a muggy day. Kenesaw Mountain Landis ate ham sandwiches rapidly and had his picture taken. Jack Dempsey, spectator, twisted his battered face into a smile. Sombre Rogers Hornsby, manager and second baseman of the Cardinals, came up to bat, pushed back his cap, was cheered for two and a half minutes. The first and most exciting inning of the game ended with one run for each team. Thereafter Pitchers Pennock and Sherdel twisted their slow left handers over the corners of the plate, hot-dog venders dragged themselves along the aisles. In the sixth inning Baseman Gehrig drove home Fielder Ruth for a winning run. Score: New York, 2; St. Louis, 1.

Second Game. The red thatch of Grover Cleveland Alexander is streaked with white, lines crease his broad face. In the world series of 1915 he pitched for Philadelphia. This year, cast adrift by Chicago for his roistering ways, he has brought the gospel of Ponce de Leon to St. Louis. He grew stronger as the afternoon wore on. In the third inning his teammates began to hit Shocker, the Yankee pitcher. Score: St. Louis, 6; New York, 2.

Third Game. The lead story of St. Louis's only morning newspaper, the Globe-Democrat, was a supplication to the citizens of the city. ". . . Be good sports today . . . fair to the Yanks . . . not as unsportsmanlike as painted. . . ." Readers recalled that the vigorous instincts of St. Louis baseball rooters had caused pop bottles to be banished from the stands. The team, returning from Manhattan, was given a frenzied welcome. Rain fell at midnight. It was still falling in the afternoon. Standing on the pitcher's mound, the only dry spot on the field, Jesse Haines, a garage keeper from Phillipsburg, Ohio, held the Yankees to five hits. Still unsatisfied, he grasped a slim yellow bat and drove one of the deliveries of his opponent, furtive "Dutch" Ruether, into the right-field bleachers for a home run. Score: St. Louis, 4; New York, 0.

Fourth Game. Babe Ruth swung his bat in a smooth high arc and began to run while the ball he had hit rode smoothly over the bleachers and dropped into Grand Avenue outside the park. It was Ruth's afternoon. The day before he had proclaimed in colorful language his contempt for St. Louis; now he must make good or be derided. Furthermore an eleven-year-old boy dying of blood poisoning in Essex Fields, N. J., had sent him a telegram asking for a home run. The appeal was exactly the sort of thing to appeal to Ruth's theatrical, large, and warmly human temper. "As soon as I knocked my first run," he said, "I thought to myself: 'There's one for the sick kid.' ' Before the day was over he had knocked two more and accounted for five runs. Rallying their bats behind him, the listless Yankees hammered out salvos of singles and doubles. Score: New York, 10; St. Louis, 5.

Fifth Game. Once more Pennock, as deliberate as a garbageman stood against Sherdel, vehement, in baggy trousers. For five innings Sherdel, famed for his delayed ball, pitched perfectly; his slow curves wound whitely up to the plate and winked out of sight into Catcher O'Farrell's glove while Yankee batsmen swore and pirouetted. But in the ninth inning Pinch Hitter Paschal smashed a single to centre scoring Gehrig, tying the score, 2 to 2. An extra inning gave the Yankees victory. Score: New York. 3; St. Louis, 2.

Sixth Game. Awkward Gehrig reached for a curve. Koenig watched three strikes go by. Collins, getting into the game in the ninth with his team eight runs behind, swung three times at nothing. These and other able Yankee gentlemen fell victims to the wiles of a man whom the sports writers have in past seasons mentioned alternately as a rake and a curmudgeon, the grim Grover Cleveland Alexander. Long before the game he declared that he would win. He chewed tobacco and went to sleep on second base. But with the young bats of his cardinal-hatted friends rat-tatting in his ear Grover Cleveland Alexander won the game. Score: St. Louis, 10; New York, 2.

Seventh Game. It was an electric Sunday afternoon. No one scored until the third inning, when a speck dropped into the leftfield bleachers and Ruth jogged around the bases pouting because he was all alone. Then Koenig fumbled, Meusel muffed, and the Cardinals scored thrice. In the sixth, New York squeaked in its second run and in the seventh filled the bases with two out. As swart Lazzeri dawdled to the plate, the Cardinals huddled around Pitcher Haines. In the stands an angry growl rose to pandemonium. Manager Hornsby came out of the huddle and shouted towards the distant "bull pen" (where pitchers practice). No one appeared. Fielder Hafey spun on his heel to carry the message, when a lumbering, red-sweatered figure appeared. "Alexander!" yelled the stands. That freckled runagade went to the pitcher's mound. "Keep your shirts on," he said and pitched five practice balls. "Don't worry," he said and pitched past Lazzeri three strikes that were worth $18,000 each. Score: St. Louis, 3; New York, 2.

In the Cardinals' locker-room it was not much noisier than in the Yankees'. They subdued their rejoicing until young Manager Rogers Hornsby had adjusted a black necktie and gone quietly away to bury his mother, whose dying message had been: "Stay in. Win."