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Even in ‘Kerosene Circuit’ Old Alex Still Packs ’Em InBY GEORGE KIRKSEYUnited Press Staff CorrespondentCHICAGO. Aug. 22.—He was batting grounders in infield practice when I walked into a ball park in the heart of Chicago's black belt, where the House of David team was to play Cole's American Giants, a Negro nine.Even if every other ball player on the field hadn't been black or worewhiskers, any one who had seen himfrom the time he broke in with the Phillies in 1911 until he pitched his last game in the National League in 1930 would have recognized 1 im. There never was but one Grover Cleveland Alexander. There he stood under the floodlights, the same tall gaunt figure that graced a majorj league pitching mound for twenty years and left behind him the greatest record of any National League pitcher. In that span he won 373 and lost 208 games.Alex hasn't changed much. He still wears his uniform sloppily and his rap perched on top of his head as if it were too small.“Look yonder. - boy.” a Negro chirped. ’Thar's old Alex. Wonder bout how old he is now?''When Alex came to the bench he confessed to 45 last February. In that stretch he's been all the wayup and down baseball's scale. Sixyears ago he was a world series hero, and now the national game has reduced him to the level of a manager and pitcher for a team of I bewhiskered players touring theEventually we got to talking about the time he came in to pitch in the 1926 world series with the bases filled, fanned Lazzeri, and pitched the Cardinals into the world's championship. It had been written and said he was tipsy wbei he came into the box that day.“I wasn’t no more drunk th?A; them Sport writers who started that.’’ Alex said. “I took my time and just kind of mosied in because I knew the longer it took me to get. to the box the more nervous a youngster like Lazzeri would be.”Pat Moran, who managed the Phillies when he broke in. Alex regards as the greatest manager he ever played under. He hasn't much regard for Joe McCarthy, who finedhim off the Cubs, but he believesRogers Hornsby, recently releasedby the Cubs, was a great leader.“I liked to play for Hornsby,” said Alex. “He never said this or that to me. He just handed me a ball and said ‘you're pitching today.’ and he never tried to tell me how topitch to a batter or second-guessedme.Gentlemen’s Fine Clothes to MeannroKAHNTA1LS7T71NS TOSecond Floor Kahn Hnilding Meridian at Wa*hinrton
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