Pop Bottles Fly as Alexander Tops Cubs Before Record Baseball Crowd
Grover Cleveland Alexander defeated his former Cubs before a record crowd of 37,196 at Sportsman's Park, while Billy Southworth homered and fans showered the field with bottles and seat cushions during a memorable 1926 doubleheader.
Content from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch - Monday June 28, 1926 - Evening Edition
In This Edition
- Alexander Makes Good Before Record Baseball Throng
- Hats, Not Heads Broken, as Fans Throw Cushions
- Cardinals Lose Half a Game In Drive to Overtake Reds
- Keen To Pitch Against Cubs In Series Final
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ALEXANDER MAKES GOOD BEFORE RECORD BASEBALL THRONG
37,196 SEE VETERAN BEAT FORMER TEAMMATES; GATES STORMED, POP BOTTLES FLY
Hornsby's Men Helpless Before Pitcher Blake in Second Game—Cub Hurler Yields Only One Safety — Billy Southworth Hits Home-Run in Opening Game.
By J. Roy Stockton
That colorful double-header that the Cardinals divided with the Chicago Cubs yesterday afternoon will go down in history with classic games of baseball played at St. Louis parks. It was an afternoon to rank with the Sunday when Rube Waddell hit a home run that crashed against the flag pole in center field, and with the day when a pop bottle jumped from the turf and hit Whitey Witt on the head and gave an imaginative fan a trip to a world series. The afternoon will be remembered with the day when Billy Evans was injured by a pop bottle thrown by a fan.
It was a full afternoon.
A new attendance record for baseball in St. Louis was established, 37,196 persons paying to see the games. The largest previous St. Louis crowd attended a spring series game in 1922, with a paid attendance of 29,600.
Grover Cleveland Alexander, recently obtained from the Cubs for a paltry $4,000, the waiver price, held his former teammates to four hits and beat them 3 to 2 in ten innings.
Sheriff Blake held the Cardinals to one hit and won the second game, 5 to 0.
Fans threw pop bottles and seat cushions in the ninth inning of the second game, holding up play for 20 minutes.
Such a mob stormed the gates just before the game that a riot call had to be sent in to a police station.
Billy Southworth, recently obtained from the Giants in a trade that sent Heine Mueller to New York, hit his first home run as a Cardinal and helped to win the first game.
Alexander Himself Again.
From a baseball standpoint the pitching performance of Alexander stood out as the high light of the afternoon. The veteran right-hander pitched a masterful game, and with Guy Osborn, a young right-hander from Wichita Falls, also hurling effectively, the game was a thriller from start to finish, as good a game and as clean a game as ever was played.
Billy Southworth hit his home run in the fifth inning to score the first run of the game and in the seventh Charlie Grimm, a native St. Louisan who plays first base for the Cubs, hit a home run with Hack Wilson Stephenson on base, as a result of his single.
The lead that Grimm's hit gave the Cubs did not last long, as Lester Bell singled in the Cardinal half, advanced on Bob O'Farrell's infield out and scored when Tommy Thevenow, a great little man in the pinch, looped a single to right.
Alexander Holds Cubs Helpless After Grimm Makes His Homer in Sixth Inning
That tied the score, but the home run by Charlie Grimm was the last hit the Cubs could manufacture off Grover Cleveland Alexander. The big right-hander put all he had into his pitches and his control was perfect. After Grimm's home run, 11 Cubs went to bat. And the 11 batters failed to reach base. Two of them struck out. Two hit flies to the outfield and seven of them were retired on grounders to the infield.
The Cardinal infield gave Alexander great support. Tommy Thevenow especially was a scurrying demon. Far to his left he would dash and then far to his right. Far into the grass-covered area of the infield and then back to the edge of the outfield grass. Deft were his hands, and true were his throws. Alexander shook hands with Tommy Thevenow after the game. Had it not been for Tommy it might have been different.
Joe McCarthy, manager of the Cubs, a bush league pilot who has accomplished wonders with the Chicago team, considered a sure tail-ender before the season started, used strategy to check the Cardinals in the ninth, but the same strategy failed in the tenth.
Strategy Checks Cards.
In the ninth Thevenow drew a pass and advanced on Alexander's sacrifice. Ray Blades was passed intentionally, and after Taylor Douthit popped to Howard Freigau, Rogers Hornsby also was given four bad balls, filling the bases. It proved sound strategy, for Jim Bottomley grounded politely to Grimm and the rally was checked.
Billy Southworth started the tenth inning with a pass and after Lester Bell sacrificed Bill to second, Guy Osborn immediately passed Bob O'Farrell. Thevenow sent a grounder down the third base line and Freigau had a chance to start a double play. But Thevenow's grounder was a hot smash, though straight to Freigau, and Freigau fumbled just long enough to enable all the base runners to scurry to safety.
Alexander struck out, but Ray Blades hit a tantalizing slow grounder to Grimm and before Osborn could hurry to first to take the throw, Blades reached the bag and Southworth dashed over the plate with the winning run.
Blake Pitches Fine Game.
It was disgraceful that the pop bottle and cushion shower marred the afternoon. Sheriff Blake deserved to win. He held the Cardinals to one lone hit, a single to center by Billy Southworth. He struck out 10 Cardinals and had a five-run lead, thanks partly to slovenly Cardinal fielding, before Southworth singled in the seventh for the only safety.
Riggs Stephenson singled, Grimm doubled and Mickey Cochrane Cooney singled in the fourth to give the Cubs two runs and in the fifth Cliff Heathcote's single, Douthit's fumble and Freigau's sacrifice fly added another. In the sixth Hornsby missed two grounders and Herman Bell missed a throw from Hornsby, the three errors giving the Cubs their final two runs.
Seven Cardinals reached base during the game, four on walks, two on errors and Southworth on his single.
Hats, Not Heads Broken, as Fans Throw Cushions
Bottle-Throwing a Demonstration of Disapproval, Not Attempt to Injure Anyone.
Two were out in the Chicago half of the ninth inning of the second game of the double-header at Sportsman's Park yesterday afternoon when a decision by Umpire Charley Moran drew a storm of protest and later a shower of pop bottles and seat cushions from the grandstand, bleachers and pavilion.
Charlie Adams, the third Chicago batter, popped to Rogers Hornsby and the Cubs were running out to take their positions in the field and the Cardinals were rushing in for their final turn at bat, when Umpire Moran called for attention and informed the players that Catcher Jimmy Warwick had interfered with Adams' bat as he popped out. Adams, therefore, was entitled to go to first base.
There was a roar of disapproval from the stands. The bleachers fans did not know what it was all about and they led in the jeering and booing.
Cliff Heathcote went to bat and the demonstration might have petered out had the game been hurried along. But Umpire Bill Quigley, a demon for detail and strict observance of rules, noticed that a few fans had stepped from the extreme left field corner of the grandstand and were encroaching on the field, though outside the foul line.
Quigley Halts Game.
Quigley stopped play till the fans could be ordered from the field. A fresh chorus of boohs, hisses and cat calls arose and some thoughtless fan in the upper deck of the grandstand on the third base line hurled a seat cushion on the field.
Immediately there was a shower of seat cushions and then the bottles started to rain from grandstand, bleacher and pavilion. In five minutes the field was littered with bottles and glass, some of the bottles going in as far as the base lines.
There were a few policemen in the park, but they were helpless and sat tight. There was no way to stop the rain of bottles and the players gathered in the infield, waiting until the supply of ammunition would be exhausted.
Finally Groundkeeper Bill Stocksiek and a force of men cleared the field sufficiently to permit the game to be finished, though during the final half inning the outfielders kept a weather eye on the stands.
Straw Hats Broken.
Many straw hats were broken by the seat cushions, sailed from the upper deck onto the heads of the fans in the lower sections, but although more than a thousand bottles were thrown and several hundred seat cushions, no serious casualties were reported.
While the demonstration was disgraceful, it may be said that it was a demonstration of disapproval rather than an attempt to injure anybody. The bottles in most cases were cast out on the field, an empty field at the time, most of them landing a few feet from the stands.
The umpires were meticulous about holding up the game because a few fans had left the stand, but after the bottle shower play was resumed with 20 or 30 bottle gatherers and fans scurrying about the outfield.
Cardinals Lose Half a Game In Drive to Overtake Reds
BREAKING even with the Cubs the Cardinals lost a half game in their drive toward first place. They are now two and a half games behind the Cincinnati Reds, who handed the world's champion Pirates a 16—0 drubbing. Pittsburg dropped a game farther behind the Reds and half a game farther below the Cards, who now are a full game ahead of the champions.
President Sam Breadon of the Cardinals said he would take steps to eliminate the congestion about the entrances at future games. He said he would arrange to have special entrances for reserved seat holders, transforming an exit gate if necessary to enable the reserved seat holders to have an entrance away from the general admission crowd.
The reserved seat holders arrived late and the congestion in Dodier Street became so serious that a riot call was sent to the police, asking for a patrol wagon of officers to handle the crowd.
More than 6,000 seats were reserved and most of the purchasers of these seats arrived in the last half hour before the game.
In addition to the 37,196 persons who paid to see the game, nearly 1,000 pass holders and gate crashers attended. There was much fence-climbing and hundreds of bleacher fans climbed over the railing into the grandstand shortly before the first game started.
The fans took the crush good-naturedly. They were fortunate that it was a comparatively cool day. Had it been a scorcher the discomfort would have been great.
Buttons were broken off coats in the jam around the entrance gates and there were many inquiries at the office for pieces of fur, torn off in the rush for the turnstiles.
If St. Louis is going to have many more crowds like that of yesterday it is time for steps to be taken to avoid a repetition of the demonstration.
In other cities it has been found dangerous to sell soda in bottles because excited fans will throw anything they can get their hands on. In many cities drinks are served in paper cups and it would be well to make a change here before players or umpires are killed by the morons.
It was fortunate that the fans were not permitted on the field. Had there been a crowd on the field, serious injury might have resulted when the bottles were thrown. Then, too, there might have been a few half-wits on the field who would have been closer to the players.
The overflow crowd, instead of going on the field, filled the aisles in back of the grandstand and packed the runways.
Phil Ball, owner of the Browns, saw his new stands filled for the first time. He congratulated Sam Breadon on the showing the Cards are making and said it would be a fine thing for baseball if they could win the pennant.
Keen To Pitch Against Cubs In Series Final
Vic Keen, formerly with the Cubs, probably will pitch this afternoon against his former teammates in the fourth and final game of the series. His opponent probably will be Tony Kaufmann, considered the ace of the Chicago pitching staff.
Keen has won nine games and lost three. He hurled in great form on his last start, but was beaten, 3 to 1, by Lee Meadows of the Pirates, who held the Cardinals to six hits.
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