Legendary Players, Legendary Games

For fans who love to read about the game and its history, Baseball in the Roaring Twenties by Thomas Wolf brings to life the 1926 season and the World Series between the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Cardinals. It was the year Lou Gehrig took over first base for the Yankees and Babe Ruth had one of his best seasons (47 homers, .372 batting average), and playing manager Rogers Hornsby led the Cardinals to their first pennant with the help of an 39-year-old Grover Cleveland Alexander. Besides Gehrig, future stars like Tony Lazzeri and Satchel Paige began their careers. Wolf, whose previous book, the highly enjoyable The Called Shot, which covered the 1932 season, weaves his narrative with incisive facts that bring the exciting '26 season to life.

Wolf gives an intriguing glimpse of American society at the time, and besides the ballplayers, many of them legendary, we have appearances by Aimee Semple McPherson, Red Grange, Jack Dempsey, Mae West, and a host of other newsmakers. Have you ever heard of the "Radio Burglar" who "terrorized" New York City in the '20s? He had a fondness for stealing radios. Did you know Al Capone sponsored a semi-pro team? He pitched and played first base. In a time where fisticuffs between opposing players and even umpires were common, it makes one wonder if Scarface threw at one's head, what would one do? Charge the mound?

In today's game it's common to see the odds on winning, odds on making the postseason, and odds on just about everything else to do with the players and the game right along with the traditional stats of batting average, home runs, and ERA. The 1920s, Wolf writes, was also a time of widespread gambling on baseball. He quotes the New York Times of the period reporting that fans "bet on balls and strikes... foul balls, errors, wild throws, and outs." Baseball commissioner Judge Kenesaw Landis worked to clean up gambling in baseball, including an incident involving Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and two others that could have shaken up baseball, which was still recovering from the 1919 Black Sox scandal. Cobb, the major league hits leader, seemed to foreshadow the player who overtook him in that statistic—Pete Rose, who had his own gambling problems.

Wolf offers a brief history of the Yankees and Cardinals franchises before taking the reader into the teams' Spring Training, and then into the 1926 season. The Yankees dominated the AL until September when they struggled before edging out the Cleveland Indians. In the National League, the Cardinals fell behind early, but a couple trades involving two future Hall of Famers saved their season, and they prevailed over Cincinnati by two games.

Grover Cleveland "Pete" Alexander came over to the Cardinals in a trade with the Cubs and pitched wonderfully. The other key trade brought Billy Southworth from the Giants. Southworth had his best year (.320) and a terrific career in baseball not only as a player, but also as a manager who won four pennants and as a scout. One of the prospects Southworth signed, Wolf tells us, was a "skinny shortstop" who was playing sandlot ball. He recommended signing the prospect, declaring it'd take four or five years before he was ready for the big league. The kid's name was Henry Aaron.

The Yankees, meanwhile, had what manager Miller Huggins claimed was "the best hitting team I ever had" with Babe Ruth, the young Gehrig, Earle Combs, and Tony Lazzeri leading the offense. At the time, Ruth and Rogers Hornsby were the two best players in baseball.

Hornsby, the Cardinal second baseman and manager, won the batting title in six consecutive seasons including two triple crowns. From 1921 to '25, he averaged 29 home runs while stroking a cumulative batting average of .401. He was backed during the '26 season by the hitting of Jim Bottomley, Les Bell, and Southworth.

The World Series opened in New York with lots of fanfare. The Yankees had made it to the World Series four times in six years, only winning the championship once. The Cardinals had never won a championship. In fact, it was the first time they won the pennant as the best team in the National League. The Series had plenty of stars and future Hall of Famers—Ruth, Gehrig, Tony Lazzeri, Rogers Hornsby, Pete Alexander, and Billy Southworth. The teams were well-matched—the powerful Yankee offense versus the pitching and defense of the Cardinals.

Wolf leads the reader with a sure hand through the World Series to the dramatic and—controversial—ending in the ninth inning of the seventh game. The bottom of the ninth inning, the Cardinals up 3-2. Two out, Babe Ruth on first base after drawing a walk. Pete Alexander on the mound trying for the save after pitching a complete game the day before. Bob Meusel, a lifetime .300 hitter and who had doubled and tripled off Alexander in the previous game, in the batter's box.

After taking us through the Major League World Series, Wolf recaps the Negro League season before describing the 1926 "Colored World Series" between the Chicago American Giants and the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants. The nine-game series was played in four different cities (to attract fans) and ended in eleven games—two ties forced extra games. It too, was a dramatic series that came down to the final inning of a close game.

If you don't know what happened in these final games, I ain't tellin'. Check out Baseball in the Roaring Twenties.