Video: Grover Cleveland Alexander and the ’26 Series

Earlier today, in these electronic pages, rising NotGraphs star Dayn Perry commemorated America’s most important holiday — Repeal Day — by naming the All-Time All-Drinkers Team.

Curious about some of the names on the list, I took to the internet and, after the most grueling 83 seconds of research you could imagine, have this video footage of the 1926 World Series — featuring the Yankees and Cardinals — to show for it.

This particular series features two all-time drinkers: Grover Cleveland (or “Pete”) Alexander and Babe Ruth, both of whom feature prominently in the video. Below are some notable moments.

0:25. That’s the very famous commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis there — who, if you believe noted historian Jonathan Coulton, “was seventeen feet tall [and] had a hundred and fifty wives.” The attentive viewer will note that Landis has an actual iron fist. Impressive!

0:49. Not baseball related, but interesting. Note that the narrator uses the word natch — as in, short for naturally. EtymOnline suggests that the truncated version was first recorded in 1945.

1:20. Slow-motion video captures Ruth hitting “the longest home run ever hit in St. Louis” on what appears — to this viewer, at least — like an opposite-field check swing.

1:34. Footage of Alexander pitching. Question: if the Inverted W is a way to describe one kind of arm action, how might we describe the one utilized by Alexander? The Askance K? The Truculent Y?

2:26. Well, that’s one definition of “money muscles.”