Babe Ruth Caught Stealing to End World Series – October 10, 1926

Babe Ruth – You know about his 60 home runs in 1927, his 714 career homers, and the one in 1932 where he allegedly called the shot after he met the little kid in the hospital. But did you know that he was the goat of the 1926 World Series?

The Yankees were playing the Cardinals in game seven at Yankee Stadium. New York was batting in the bottom of the ninth inning, trailing 3-2. Facing Cardinals’ reliever Pete Alexander, the Yankees’ Earl Combs started the inning by grounding out to third. Mark Koenig followed him and also grounded out to third. Then Babe Ruth stepped to the plate. At that point he was probably the leading contender to be the series MVP. He had hit three home runs in game four, and another in the third inning of game seven.

Ruth was 6-20 for the series, as he stepped to the plate. He had also walked 10 times including three previous at-bats in game seven. His on base percentage was .516. After running a 3-2 count, Alexander walked Ruth one last time.

And then as H.I. Phillips wrote in the Boston the Globe the next day –
The end came a moment later when the Babe was caught stealing second. It was a case of the behemoth mistaking itself for a gazelle.