Sport: Immortals

Abner Doubleday was a general in the Civil War. The world will probably little note nor long remember what he did at Gettysburg* but it can never forget what he did at Cooperstown. In that sleepy little New York village 99 years ago, he invented baseball.

It was not until 1907, 14 years after General Doubleday’s death, that a research committee definitely established Cooperstown as the birthplace of baseball. Civic-proud Cooperstownians, whose pastoral background had already been immortalized as the home town and nameplace† of James Fenimore Cooper, bought the original baseball field, spent $25,000 to transform it into a modern ball park and public playground, named it Doubleday field. Three years ago, in anticipation of the 100th birthday of the game, baseball bigwigs and benefactors joined hands to make Cooperstown a bigger, better shrine. To preserve its treasures, baseball sentimentalists decided to build an imposing three-story colonial brick museum. To immortalize its heroes, baseball administrators voted to establish therein a Baseball Hall of Fame —to take the form of bronze plaques placed around the first floor exhibition hall. Last week the Baseball Writers Association of America, in its third annual election, chose Grover Cleveland Alexander to join the 13 Immortals** already selected.

There are two ways to become an Immortal: 1) election by a 75% vote of the members of the Baseball Writers Association, who have been given the task of choosing players whose careers ended some time between 1900 and the year of election; 2) selection by a committee of oldsters, who choose 19th Century heroes. In this year’s ballot, Grover Cleveland Alexander was the only player who received enough votes to qualify. Of 262 votes he received 212.

Immortal No. 14, whose career, like most baseballers’, has been a poignant illustration of the old baseball adage—a hero in the third inning may look like a bum in the seventh—was last week swapping tales with local barflies in the Empire Hotel at Springfield, Ill., when he was informed of his fortunate rescue from obscurity. One of the most effective right-handed pitchers of all time, Grover Cleveland (“Old Pete”) Alexander, now 50, could review a career that reached its third inning in the 1926 World Series (between the Cardinals and Yankees) when, after a night of carousing in celebration of two victories for the Cardinals, he was called from the bullpen at the crucial point of the crucial game to pitch to Tony Lazzeri, with the bases full of Yankees. Lazzeri struck out. Alexander was the hero of the year. When, four years later, he stepped out of major-league baseball, sportswriters extolled Pitcher Alexander’s 20 years of major-league play, his National League record of 373 victories in 696 games, his 90 shutouts, 16 in one season (an all-time record), his 28 victories in his first year of big-league baseball (1911). But last week “Old Pete” was managing a hotel ball team called the Springfield Empires—a station he had reached via the characteristic twilight trail from major-league to minor-league to semi-pro baseball, including an interval of barnstorming with the bearded House of David troupe.

*General Doubleday was in command of the Union troops on the first day of the battle.

†Cooperstown was founded by Novelist Cooper’s father, Judge William Cooper.

**Other Immortals: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, Honus Wagner, Walter Johnson, Napoleon Lajoie, Tris Speaker, Cy Young, Connie Mack, Ban Johnson, John J. McGraw, Morgan Bulkeley, George Wright.