1926 World Series: Ruth Caught Stealing to End It

October 10, 1926. Yankee Stadium. Bottom of the ninth inning, Game 7 of the World Series, and Babe Ruth stood on first base with two outs and the New York Yankees trailing the St. Louis Cardinals 3-2. The tying run was ninety feet from scoring position. Bob Meusel -- a .315 hitter with 78 RBI that season -- dug in at the plate. On the first pitch, Ruth broke for second. Catcher Bob O'Farrell's throw beat him by a step. Rogers Hornsby slapped the tag down. The Series was over. The only World Series in baseball history to end on a caught stealing had produced its final, bewildering image: the biggest star in the sport, thrown out trying to do something nobody expected, because nobody expected it for a reason.

Seven Games of Whiplash

The 1926 World Series had been a volatile affair from the start. The Yankees took Game 1 at home, 2-1, behind a tense pitching duel. The Cardinals answered with back-to-back wins -- 6-2 in Game 2 and a 4-0 shutout in Game 3 -- to seize control. The Yankees looked like a team that had used up all its energy just getting to October after the .

Then Ruth reminded everyone who he was.

Three Home Runs

Game 4, October 6. Ruth hit three home runs in a 10-5 Yankees victory -- becoming the first player in World Series history to accomplish the feat in a single game. Three swings, three trips around the bases, and the Series was knotted at two games apiece. The Stadium crowd didn't just watch it -- they felt something shift. Ruth wasn't coasting on reputation. At 31, coming off a bounce-back regular season, he was still capable of bending a game to his will through sheer, terrifying force.

The Yankees won Game 5 behind solid pitching, 3-2, taking a 3-2 Series lead back to Yankee Stadium. One win from the championship. Then the Cardinals blew the doors off in Game 6, winning 10-2, and the whole thing came down to a Sunday afternoon in the Bronx.

The Old Man

Grover Cleveland Alexander was 39 years old, an epileptic, and -- by most reliable accounts -- not entirely sober on the afternoon of October 10, 1926. None of that mattered once he took the mound.

Alexander had already started and won Games 2 and 6. When Cardinals manager Rogers Hornsby called on him in relief during Game 7, the expectation in the press box was that Alexander was running on empty. He'd pitched a complete game just two days earlier. The conventional wisdom said his arm should've been hanging by a thread.

The bases were loaded in the seventh inning. Tony Lazzeri -- the Yankees' rookie second baseman who'd driven in 117 runs that year -- stepped in. Alexander worked him carefully, then struck him out. The Stadium went quiet in the way that 60,000 people go quiet when they realize the story isn't going their way.

Alexander held the Yankees scoreless through the eighth. Then he came back out for the ninth.

The Walk

With two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Ruth stepped to the plate. Alexander walked him -- a competitive walk, not a gift. Ruth fouled off pitches, worked the count, and took ball four. First base. Tying run aboard.

The situation was straightforward: Meusel at the plate, Ruth on first, the Yankees needing a hit to extend the game and a home run to win it. The percentage play was obvious -- let Meusel hit. Ruth was 31, he'd been caught stealing 9 times in 20 regular-season attempts, and second base didn't change the math much. A single to the outfield would likely score Ruth from first anyway.

The Decision

Ruth ran.

On the first pitch to Meusel, he took off for second. O'Farrell came up throwing, and the ball reached Hornsby before Ruth reached the bag. The tag was clean. The game was over. The Series belonged to St. Louis.

Ruth's explanation afterward was characteristically blunt: "I thought no one would expect it." The reasoning wasn't crazy -- surprise was his only edge on the basepaths, and reaching scoring position would mean a single could tie it instead of leaving it to chance. But the execution was a different story. His stolen base success rate that season was barely above 50 percent. The risk dwarfed the reward.

The debate over what actually happened has never been settled. Some historians believe the play was a failed hit-and-run -- that Meusel was supposed to swing and didn't, leaving Ruth exposed. Others take Ruth at his word and call it a spontaneous gamble. Either way, the result was the same: the biggest name in baseball, tagged out at second base, while 60,000 fans watched the World Series end in a way nobody had ever seen before.

I thought no one would expect it.

Gehrig in the Shadows

Lost in the chaos of the final play was Gehrig's World Series performance. The 22-year-old hit .348 across seven games -- steady, reliable, unflashy production from a kid playing in his first Fall Classic. His (.313/16/109) had announced him as a star. His October work confirmed it. But nobody wrote about Gehrig's .348 the next morning. They wrote about Ruth's stolen base attempt.

That dynamic -- Ruth commanding the spotlight, Gehrig producing in it -- would define the franchise for the next decade.

The Aftermath

The loss hurt, but the 1926 season proved the franchise was back. Huggins' rebuild had worked. Gehrig and Lazzeri had arrived. Ruth could still dominate. The World Series had come down to the final inning of the final game, and the margin between winning and losing was one bad decision on the basepaths.

The 1927 response was definitive: 110-44, Ruth's 60 home runs, Gehrig's 175 RBI, and a World Series sweep of Pittsburgh. The pain of October 10, 1926, didn't vanish -- it converted into fuel. The 1928 club swept St. Louis for a second straight title, and Ruth hit three home runs in Game 4 of that Series (matching his 1926 feat). The man who'd been tagged out at second base made sure the Cardinals remembered what he could do when the baseball stayed in the park.

Nobody has ended a World Series that way since. A hundred years of October baseball, and it's still Ruth, still Yankee Stadium, still the same unanswerable question: what was he thinking?

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Babe Ruth try to steal second base in the 1926 World Series?

Ruth said he attempted the steal because "I thought no one would expect it." His reasoning was that reaching scoring position would allow a single from Bob Meusel to tie the game. Some historians believe the play was actually a failed hit-and-run, with Meusel supposed to swing on the pitch. Regardless of intent, Ruth's 1926 stolen base success rate (roughly 55 percent) made the gamble extremely risky in a Game 7 situation.

Has a World Series ever ended on a caught stealing?

Only once. The 1926 World Series ended when Babe Ruth was caught stealing second base in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7. Cardinals catcher Bob O'Farrell threw to Rogers Hornsby, who tagged Ruth out. No other World Series in baseball history -- before or since -- has ended on a runner being thrown out attempting to steal.

Who won the 1926 World Series?

The St. Louis Cardinals won the 1926 World Series, defeating the Yankees four games to three. It was the first championship in Cardinals franchise history. The Series was defined by Ruth's three-homer game in Game 4, Grover Cleveland Alexander's relief pitching in Game 7, and Ruth's caught stealing on the final play.