Baseball in the Roaring Twenties

The Yankees, the Cardinals, and the Captivating 1926 Season

Thomas Wolf

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN:
  9781496244581
• Subtopic: 20th Century History

In the mid-1920s, America was in the throes of exuberant excess and clashing social change. It was the era of Prohibition and speakeasies; the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan; popular evangelists, including ex-ballplayer Billy Sunday; a fascination with dangerous stunts like pole-sitting and wing-walking; incredible personal feats and new personalities such as Charles Lindbergh, Gertrude Ederle, and Mae West; and the advancement of innovative forms of entertainment—jazz, motion pictures, the radio. It was the Golden Age of Sports. But it was also a decade of corruption amid the ominous signs of economic collapse.

In 1926 baseball stars of an earlier era still played major roles in the game: Veteran pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander was the hero of the 1926 World Series; Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker faced explosive allegations of game-fixing; Babe Ruth’s mysterious illness and dismal 1925 season convinced many observers that Ruth was finished—over the hill. Meanwhile, new stars like Tony Lazzeri and Lou Gehrig had arrived on the scene, and the Negro Leagues were at the height of their popularity and success with Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants winning the Colored World Series of 1926. One of America’s most ardent fans cheered from the White House—not the taciturn president, Calvin Coolidge, but his vibrant and well-liked wife, Grace.

Focusing on the Cardinals and Yankees and their dramatic seven-game battle in the 1926 World Series, Baseball in the Roaring Twenties tells the story of key players such as Babe Ruth and Rogers Hornsby, the Negro Leagues season, and how baseball and the inextricably linked aspects of American life—Prohibition, the Jazz Age, and the rise of sports gambling—converged that year. 
 

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Tables
• Author’s Note
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part 1
• 1. A Dynasty Is Born
• 2. Miller Huggins
• 3. The Cardinals and Rogers Hornsby
• 4. Spring Training in Terrell Woods
• 5. Spring Training in St. Petersburg
• Part 2
• 6. Opening Days
• 7. Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb
• 8. Early Season Blues for the Redbirds
• 9. Grover Cleveland Alexander
• 10. Away from the Ballpark
• 11. Dutch Leonard Has a Story to Tell
• 12. Yankee Pitchers and Tony Lazzeri
• 13. Rube Foster and Black Baseball
• 14. Sesquicentennial Games
• 15. Judge Landis Takes Over
• 16. The Golden Age of Sports
• 17. Final Days
• Part 3
• 18. World Series Games One and Two
• 19. World Series Games Three, Four, and Five
• 20. World Series Games Six and Seven
• 21. The Colored World Series of 1926
• 22. Judge Landis Steps Up to the Plate
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About Thomas Wolf
• Illustrations