"Old Pete"

Real oldtime baseball fans have no trouble remembering a buoyant, carousing young man of 24 who blew into the majors from the Nebraska plains in 1911 and promptly won 28 games with the Philadelphia Phillies, a freshman record that has never been approached. Grover Cleveland Alexander, with fireball, fast curve, boundless self-confidence, and a big wad of chewing tobacco tucked in the corner of his grinning mouth, hit the National League like a meteor, and managed to keep his big-league glow for 20 years.

His greatest trouble was his fondness for glowing after dark, as well. Though for three years in a row (1915-17) he won 30 or more games for the Phillies, "Old

Pete's" gin-drinking night life finally finished him in Philadelphia. He was dealt to the Chicago Cubs after the 1917 season, and after a brief stint as a sergeant in the A.E.F. came back to win 123 games for them in seven seasons. But Old Pete and Cub Manager Joe McCarthy were unable to see eye to eye on training regulations, so Alex the Great was sold for the waiver price ($4,000 at the time) to the Cardinals.

At St. Louis, under Manager Rogers Hornsby, Old Pete had his greatest moment. He had helped the Cardinals in 1926 to St. Louis' first pennant in 50 years, won the second and sixth World Series games against Miller Huggins' New York Yankees, and had with Teetotaler Hornsby's acquiescence gone off on his standard Saturday-night binge. He was sleeping it off in the bullpen the next day when Hornsby, in a tight spot, called on him for relief duty in the deciding game.

The Cards had a seventh-inning lead, 3-2, but the Yankees had loaded the bases with two out. Lou Gehrig was on first, Bob Meusel on second, Earle Combs on third, and slugging Tony Lazzeri was up. Pete ambled sleepily to the mound, took a couple of warm-up throws and struck Lazzeri out on three pitches, went on to save the St. Louis lead and win the World Championship. Later, Pete reminisced about his second pitch to Lazzeri, which Lazzeri had hit whistling down the third-base line--barely foul. Said he: "A foot made the difference between being a hero and a bum."

Four years later, at 43, Old Pete was finally washed up and tragically on the downgrade. He tried the minors, did a stint with the bearded baseball barnstormers of the House of David and constantly talked of a comeback. At 50 he was still pitching semi-pro ball. In 1940, two years after he had become the ninth man voted into Baseball's Hall of Fame, he was discovered by a newspaperman on Manhattan's 42nd Street, working in a flea circus. Quipped Old Pete: "It's better than having 'em live off you."

In the following years he did less quipping, but he still managed to make small-type headlines. Samples: OLD PETE, BROKE, IN VET HOSPITAL; ALEXANDER COLLAPSES; GROVER ALEXANDER SENT TO BELLEVUE; NECK BROKEN, ALEXANDER WALKS OUT OF HOSPITAL. Last week, at 63, Old Pete's troubles came to an end. Back in St. Paul, Neb., his old home town, he died peacefully in his sleep. Baseball fans, remembering the one-foot difference between hero and bum, remembered the record of one of baseball's greatest pitchers: 373 games won,* 90 by shutout, winning percentage .642.

* Tying him with Christy Mathewson's National League record, but falling short of Walter Johnson's 414 in the American League and Cy Young's alltime 511 in both leagues.

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