By WAYNE PHILLIPS

Sports Editor

Dale Alexander, the most renowned baseball player from Greene County to play in the Major Leagues, will be inducted into the International League Hall of Fame on June 7 in Louisville, Ky.

It might seem a long time coming for Alexander, who had a stellar career in baseball's International League, but the league's Hall of Fame has been dormant since 1964. This year, 27 individuals will be inducted, the largest induction class in history.

Alexander was a winner of the Triple Crown in the International League in 1928 (best average, most homers and most RBI), one of only six players in International League history to accomplish the feat.

Dale's son, Don Alexander, said he and other family members will make the trip to Louisville to participate in the induction ceremony.

Alexander had an International League batting average of .352 and collected 362 RBI in three seasons with Toronto (1927-28) and Newark (1934). The 1928 Triple Crown season saw him bat .380, hit 31 homers and knock in 144 runs. The big first baseman also led the league with 236 hits and 49 doubles in 1928.

Nicknamed "Moose," Alexander won the starting first base job with the Detroit Tigers in 1929 after his Triple Crown season in the International League. He was an immediate success, leading the American League with 215 hits and accumulating more extra base hits than Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Fox.

In his first two Major League seasons, Alexander knocked in 272 runs, more than any player in history except Joe DiMaggio.

In 1932, Alexander got off to a slow start, batting .250 over the first two months of the season, and was traded from the Tigers on June 12, 1932, to the Boston Red Sox. Alexander went on a tear for the Red Sox, winning the American League batting crown with a career-high .367 average. He is still the only Major League batting champion to have been traded to another league team during the season in which he won the title.

Alexander's big league career began a downward slide on May 30, 1933, when he twisted a knee in Philadelphia. He was given a relatively new, electrically induced heat treatment in the Red Sox clubhouse, but Alexander's leg sustained third degree burns, and gangrene set in.

"It was a new method of treatment and not too much was known about it," Alexander said in an interview years later. "I noticed by leg felt awfully hot. I ended up with third degree burns and a gangrene infection and almost lost my leg. I was finished in the Majors ... I couldn't run, and I couldn't field ..."

He played his last Major League game on Sept. 23, 1933, against the New York Yankees.

After 1933, Alexander's mobility and fielding were hampered by the leg injury, but he continued playing in the minor leagues until 1942.

After his playing days were over, Alexander became a scout for the New York and San Francisco Giants for 13 years (1951-1963) and for the Milwaukee Braves for one year (1964).

He retired back home to Greeneville, where he died at the age of 75.