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Babe Ruth’s Mysterious Gambit: The Final Out of the 1926 World Series
The 1927 Yankees are forever cemented in baseball lore and ingrained in the minds of devotee’s as being the best of all time. But often overlooked is the fact they were pretty good the previous year, too. That team however, had a controversial end to it’s season when the St. Louis Cardinals bested the Bronx Bombers in the 1926 World Series. The dramatic final out has been a “head scratcher” for 90 years.
On October 10, 1926 at Yankee Stadium, the Cardinals were hanging on to a precious 3-2 lead in the bottom of the ninth in Game Seven. The lead was stunningly preserved two innings earlier when veteran drunkard Grover Cleveland “Old Pete” Alexander, one day removed from a dazzling complete game victory in Game Six, came on in relief to strike out future Hall-of-Famer Tony Lazzeri with the bases loaded. A truly pivotal moment.
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Alexander remained in the game, chugging along to the ninth with the top of the Yanks’ powerful order coming up and 38,000-plus fans at Yankee Stadium hoping for some heroics. Old Pete forced both Earle Combs and Mark Koenig into groundouts, bringing up Babe Ruth with two outs and nobody on. On a 3-2 pitch, Ruth walked. That brought slugger Bob Meusel to the plate with the great Lou Gehrig on deck and Lazzeri in the hole – the perfect combination to tie or win the game. Suddenly, Ruth broke for second in an attempted two-out delayed steal. Whereupon a laser-perfect throw from catcher Bob O’Farrell (NL MVP in 1926) to Rogers Hornsby followed, and “‘Ol’ Jidge” was tagged out, ending the game and the series. The questions that this attempted steal raise, aside from the why, are many:
Was Ruth just being aggressive? He did steal on O’Farrell the day before after all, but why this particular two-out gamble with the heart of the order due up? Was it a hit-and-run? Some accounts say it was, though neither Ruth, Meusel, or manager Miller Huggins ever fully confirmed this. Did Ruth not have confidence in Meusel to knock one in the gap or out of the park? This is possible, since Bob was known to have dips in confidence. On top of that, his two costly misplays in the fourth inning – including a dropped routine fly – directly led to all three Cardinals runs in the game. These things, combined with his struggles at the plate, no doubt put great strain on him in that situation. Knowing this, perhaps Ruth wanted to put the pressure on himself? If so, it was a very selfless yet risky ploy. Or was it something else?
No accusations are being made here, but one thing more needs to be considered. Rumors were rampant in those days with suggestions that Meusel (and perhaps even Ruth?) had been approached by gamblers and possibly had even accepted payoffs prior to the series. If Meusel was “on the take,” this could lend credence to his uncharacteristic and timely defensive gaffes in the game. In addition, famous betting ringleader Sport Sullivan, a key player in the fixing of the 1919 World Series, was in attendance. His presence roused further suspicions. Sulivan was later removed by American League President Ban Johnson.
Gambling was, of course, all the talk of baseball in those days. Just five years removed from the banning of the infamous eight members of the White Sox, and amid a flurry of fresh accusations that superstars Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker and Smoky Joe Wood had fixed games back in September 1919, it’s not unrealistic to imagine players were approached about not playing this particular game on the level. The evidence against Cobb and Speaker became so damning that just weeks after the ’26 series ended, they both retired at the urging of Johnson before the story broke and damaged the reputations of the two Hall-of-Famers. The Cobb/Speaker ultimatum was the design of both Johnson and Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis.
As baseball itself was “on trial” for most of the 1920’s, it would’ve been crushing, perhaps even lethal for the game, if two of it’s megastars were found to be fixing and betting on games. Landis knew this, and promptly backed off. Historian Glenn Stout compared Landis’ actions in this case to a seamstress pulling a single thread, only to discover she’s unraveling the whole garment. Both Cobb and Speaker would ultimately return the following year with the Athletics and Senators, respectively, in player-coach roles. They would be united in 1928 with the A’s before retiring permanently. Their presence for that one season helped shape a powerhouse team, as Connie Mack’s A’s would win the World Series in 1929 and 1930.
Their situation, although having no direct involvement with the 1926 Series, is nonetheless important to consider because it was part of the baseball landscape of the time. If two of the game’s most heralded stars could be involved with betting activity, not to mention what happened with the Black Sox, then so could anyone, including Bob Muesel or even the great Babe Ruth.
Conclusions? There really are none that are concrete. Like so many great or tragic situations in baseball history, the further we delve into them the more questions arise. Was Ruth just trying to put the game on his shoulders? Did Huggins employ a gutsy hit-and-run that failed? Was it just an unbeatable throw by O’Farrell? Were there outside factors that got to Meusel and possibly Ruth that affected the outcome of the game? We’ll sadly never fully know…
-Kevin Trusty
Sources: Tris Speaker: The Rough and Tumble Life of a Baseball Legend, Timothy Gay, 2007
By The Numbers: Judging Babe Ruth’s Attempted Steal In The 1926 World Series
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA192610100.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/PHA/1928.shtml
Photo Credit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/68/Ruth1926-3.jpg
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