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Former Big League Hurler Is With Bewhiskered TeamI'inds Life on Road Extremely Tough and Quite Unlike Playing With Major League Clubs and Living First Classlt;Wb. tattinggroundors ia infield practice when I walked Into a ball park la the heart oi Chicago's black belt, where the House of David team was to play Colo’s American Giants, a negro nine.Even If every other oau player on the field hadn’t been block or wore General Grant whiskers, anyone who *nA seen Ji'm from the time ho broke in with the Phillies In 1911 untU he pitched his lost game In the National league in 1930 would have Immediately recognized him.There never was but one Grover Clevoland Alexander.There he stood under the floodlights tossing up a bell and hitting it with a bat. the same tall, gaunt figure that graced a major league pitching mound for 20 years and leftWorm Turns!span he won Z12 and 2«r___prom a distance, he hasn't changed much. He still wears hi* uniform sloppily and'his cap perched On topBraves Put Extra Innings to AdvantageNew Yofk, Aiig 22.—Marathon baseball, which- threatened to sink the Boston Biaves *nto the National league cellar, has unexpectedly enabled the Bostonians to snap out of their tall spin and bounce into 111th position in the league.The Braves, lu their last five games, battled 67 innings, the equivalent of nearly seven and ono-hali normal contests, pour of the five games were extrz-lnnlng affairs.But yesterday, the Tribe turned the 4th march ton to Its advantage and beat out the St. Louis Cardinals, 7 to a, In 14 innings. They held the world champions to a 2-all tie in 12ie xiigh tcap oi tne scheduled double-header. called after the slxt»h because of darkness.This victory enabled th* BmvM. with t percentage of .49180 to place the Cards In fifth position. The Cards had .40152. ,Chicago extended Its first-place lead to two and one-half gomes by blanking the Phillies. 2 to 0, behind Lonnie Warncke’s four-hit pitching, while the runner-up Brooklyn IXKJg-«rs were crushed, 9 to 3, by the revitalized New York Giants, for whom Hughie Cntz, Frank Hogan and Bill Terry performed heroically at the bat.The Cincinnati Beds shut our th~ Pittsburgh. Pirates, 2 to 0, alter garnering two tallies in the third in-' nlag of a walk, two long flies and two hits.The New York Yankees Increased tiadr American league lead to 10 1-2of his head aa it it wer# too funrll tor him.Look yonder, boy. a colored gentleman chirped. “There’s old Alex. Wonder 'bout how old ha is now. Betcbft. 'bout as old as Methuselah-When he came to the bench he confessed to 45 last February. And In that stretch he's been all the way up and down baseball’s tcale. Six years ago he was a world series hero, and now the national gome h« reduced him to the level of « manager and pitcher for a tribe of be whiskered players touring tho kerosene circuit in a bus. t _ ..Hie arm may have lost moat of its cunning and his legs may have gone back on him, but the name GroverCleveland AlcXuhder ia still a magnet to baseball fans. Be’* advertised to pitch in every game, and he usually goes la for an Inning or two. Last year the House of David team played 184 games and Alexander pitched in more than half of them. They ve played about 115 this year, and hes been in 90 of them.•Don’t the old soupbone ever hurt you?” he was asked.* Tho strain of pitching night after night makes it get tired quick and I can’t last more'n two or three m-nlngs,” he said. I think, though, if I got my legs hr shape and had the proper rest I could go the route once a week.“How do you like this life?Thle is tougher than playing in the big leagues,” he replied. Yett: everything s arranged for you, you live flrot-claas and you dou’f l»a»e to do nothing but play ball. The poor diamond6. the hostile crowd*, the partial umpires, and bad accommodations and everything like that make this pretty tough Eventually we got to talking about the time he cams in to pitch In the 2026 world series with the bases flll-cd. fanned Lazzerl, and pitched the Cardinals into the world** championship It baa been written and that he wax tip*y when he came into the box that day.1 wasn’t no more drunk than to_e sport writers who started that.” Alex aald. 1 took my time and Just kind of mosled in because I knew the longer it took me to get to the box the more nervous a youngster like Laszari would be.Aaked If he thought he would have lasted longer If h« had never Lmttib-m* Alex reolled:
Newspaper Details
Zanesville Signal
Zanesville, Ohio, US
Mon, Aug 22, 1932
Page 17
Full Page
Clipped by
Michael W.
NA, 21 Jan 2023
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