Alexander:
Grover Cleveland “Old Pete” Alexander (February 26, 1887 – November 4, 1950) was an American professional baseball pitcher. He played in
Major League Baseball for the Philadelphia Phillies Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1938.
Alexander was born in Elba, Neb., is one of 13 children. He played Semi-Pro Ball in youth, signing his first professional contract at age 20 in 1907 for $ 50 month. He had a good first season, but his career almost ended when he was struck by thrown ball, baserunning . The incident set his career back, he had already mastered in 1910, became a star pitcher again, and was sold to the P
hiladelphia Phillies for $ 750.
Alexander made his debut in Philadelphia before the season 1911 City Series. Alexander defeated five innings, no-hit, no run baseball against the Athletics. He wanted to make it an official Major League debut on April 15, 1911 . He will be joined on the Phillies in the same year spectacle Bill Killefer, who later became a favorite of Alexander the receiver, catching him in 250 games .
In his rookie year, Alexander led the league with 28 victories (modern-day rookie record), 31 complete games, 367 innings pitched and seven shutouts, while finishing second in strikeout and fourth in ERA. From 1912 to 1920, Alexander led the league in ERA 5 times (1915, 1916, 1917, 1919 and 1920), won 5 times (1914-17, 1920), innings 6 times (1912, 1914-17, 1920), , striking out 6 times (1912, 1914-1917, 1920), games, 5 times (1914-1917, 1920), and five times in shutouts (1915, 1916 [single season record 16], 1917, 1919). He won pitching’s Triple Crown in 1915, 1916, 1917 and 1920. In 1915, he played an important role in leading Phillies their first pennant, and he broke a 4-1 record beating.
After 1917 season, the Phillies have sold
Alexander Cubs, allegedly for fear that he would have been lost to the army in World War I, but as Phillies owner William Baker later confessed, “I need the money.” Of course, Alexander was drafted, (citation needed) and spent most of the season 1918 in France as an artillery officer, where he suffered a concussion, partial hearing loss, and worse, and convulsions. Always a drunk, Alexander hit the bottle particularly hard after the war. He still gave Chicago several successful years, however, and grabbed another pitching triple crown in 1920. Finally tiring of his increasing drunkenness and insubordination, Cubs sold him to the Cardinals in mid-season in 1926 for refusing to price .
Cardinals won the National League pennant this year and met with the New York Yankees in the World Series, where Alexander was his best moment. He broke a complete victory in Game 2 and Game 6. By Bob O’Farrell team in the glory of his time, after the match 6 wins, Alexander was able to drink all night and still feeling the effects when he was sent into the field. Alexander came to the game in the seventh inning of game 7, after starting Jesse Hines has developed blisters with the Cardinals ahead 3-2, bases loaded and 2 out. Facing Yankee hitter Tony Lazzeri, Alexander hit him, and then held the Yankees scoreless for two innings to preserve the victory and give St. Louis the championship. He is one of the last 20-win season, the Cardinals in 1927, but his continued drinking, finally made it in. He left Major League Baseball after a brief return to the Phillies in 1930 and pitched for the house of David until 1938.
Alexander attended three games in 1950 in the World Series Yankee Stadium, where he saw the Phillies play the Yankees. He died less than a month later on November 4, 1950 in St. Paul, Nebraska, at age 63.
Alexander was born in the first term of U.S. President Grover Cleveland.
Newspapers often mentioned his full name when writing about him, just in addition to Grover. It is also sometimes referred to as “Alec”, as well as instances when he was in vogue (as in the 1926 World Series), they call him “Alexander the Great.”
The origin of the nickname “Old Pete” is a mystery. It is unclear how often Alexander was publicly known as a nickname during the playing days. In his 1940 baseball card Playball he called the “Pit-Ol ‘”. World Series Baseball, and major, in Lamont, Buchanan, published in 1951, when Alexander died, pp. 106-107, the author refers to “Pete Alexander” and “Ol ‘Pete” in the prosaic way, offering nickname was well known. When he won three hundred and seventy third game on August 10, 1929, a newspaper called him “old” Pete, pointing out that the nickname was in public circulation. (Notes of baseball history, according to Deutsch, Cohen, Johnson and oil, Bobbs-Merrill, 1975, p. 131).
His nickname amongst old friends of the family in Nebraska, was “Dod”. (See “Alexander Grover and bride People Home Visit”, Paul Phonograph, St. Paul, Neb., April 24, 1919)
Alexander was dedicated in 1952 biopic Winning Team, in which he played Ronald Reagan. Baseball commentator Bill James called the film “a terrible movie, the movie Reader’s Digest”, a reduction in events in the life of Alexander in clichés. “Nevertheless, Alexander honored to be a namesake of the president of the United States and as depicted in the film actor who later became president. At Warner Bros. ‘insistence, the word “epilepsy” is not mentioned in the film.
The block-letter “P” in 1915 the form of the season, was sacked Phillies in 2001 to honor Phyllis Alexander’s career.
