Dictionary- Sweet Swing
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Welcome to the Baseball History Podcast: Featuring This Week in Baseball History, baseball dictionary and a tour of baseball cities. I’m your game announcer Bob Wright.
This is game 47 of the 2008 baseball season
In the first inning let’s take a look at This Week in Baseball History for the 3 week of November.
November 16
1960 Dick Groat is selected as the National League’s Most Valuable Player. The World Champion Pirate shortstop led the league in hitting with a .325 average.
Richard Morrow Groat was born November 4, 1930 in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania.
Groat was the complete ballplayer. A natural athlete, he never played minor league ball. The slick ball-handler was at or near the top of the league each year in assists, putouts, and double plays.
From 1956 to 1962 he teamed with second baseman Bill Mazeroski to give the Pittsburgh Pirates one of the game’s strongest middle infields.
Groat played college basketball for Duke University. While at Duke he was twice an All-American and was voted as the National Player of the Year in 1952 after averaging 25.2 points per game.
He was signed by Pirates general manager Branch Rickey just days after graduating from Duke. Interestingly enough, he did not play baseball at Duke. Both the St. Louis Cardinals and New York Giants were also interested in him, but he had always hoped to play for the Pirates after growing up a few miles away from Forbes Field.
He broke in with the Pirates in June, never playing in the minor leagues, and batted .284 over the rest of the year.
Groat played one season as a guard with the Fort Wayne Pistons of the National Basketball Association. In 26 games, he averaged 11.9 points, but his basketball career was cut short by military service.
While in the Army Groat continued to play basketball. He led Fort Belvoir teams to worldwide Army championships in both sports, the first time a single base had won both titles in the same year, hitting .362 in baseball and averaging 35 points per game in basketball.
In 1955 when his enlistment was up, he returned to the Pirates rather than to the Pistons. He batted second for the team, with leadoff hitter Bill Virdon later recalling his particular skill at the hit and run.
That year he led the National League in putouts for the first time. Relief pitcher Roy Face noted that Groat was always in the best position for the various hitters, although he didn’t have great speed or a strong arm.
In 1957 he batted .315 to go along with a career high of 7 home runs. On September 29 of that year against the Giants, he threw out the final batter ever at the Polo Grounds.
In 1958 he again hit .300, and led the National League in putouts and double plays as the Pirates finished in second place, the first time they had placed higher than seventh since 1949.
He led the National League in putouts and double plays again in 1959, and made his first of five All-Star teams. During the offseason he was nearly traded for Roger Maris, but the deal was cancelled by manager Danny Murtaugh.
Groat responded with his best year as team captain, becoming the first Pirate to be named Most Valuable Player since Paul Waner in their last pennant year of 1927, and also the first right-handed Pirates hitter to win the batting title since Honus Wagner in 1911. He missed a few weeks late in the season after having his wrist broken by a Lew Burdette pitch on September 6.
In the 1960 World Series against the New York Yankees, he tied Game 1 at 1-1 with a first-inning double and scored to give Pittsburgh the lead; they stayed in front, winning 6-4, with Groat turning a double play to end the game. In Game 7, he had an Run Batted In single and scored in the eighth inning, in which the Pirates scored five runs to take a 9-7 lead. The Pirates went on to win the Series on Mazeroski’s famed home run in the next inning.
Groat batted .275 in 1961, with both he and Mazeroski leading the league in double plays.
In 1962 he batted .294, finishing third in the league in doubles, and led the National League in putouts, assists and double plays.
In November 1962, in the hope of bolstering the team’s pitching, general manager Joe L. Brown traded him to the Cardinals in exchange for Don Cardwell. Groat was deeply hurt by the trade, having hoped to become a coach and eventually manager after retiring, and severed all contact with the team until a 1990 reunion of the 1960 champions.
He had another outstanding year in 1963, finishing fourth in the league with a .319 batting average and collecting 201 hits. He also led the National League with 43 doubles, and was third with a personal high of 11 triples. He was the runner up to Sandy Koufax in the Most Valuable Player voting.
In 1964 he batted .292 for the pennant-winning Cardinals, again leading the league in assists and double plays and making his last All-Star team. In the World Series against the Yankees, he reached base on Bobby Richardson’s error in the sixth inning of Game 4, and scored on Ken Boyer’s grand slam in the 4-3 St. Louis victory. He scored in the 3-run tenth inning of Game 5, a 5-2 win, and had an Run Batted In groundout in the final 7-5 win in Game 7.
After hitting .254 in 1965, he was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies in a six-player deal. He batted .265 for the 1966 Phillies, and his contract was sold to the Giants in June 1967; he ended his career that season with a .156 average in 44 games.
In a fourteen-season career, Groat compiled a .286 batting average with 2138 hits, 352 doubles,
829 runs, and 707 runs batted in.
After college, Groat played one season as a guard with the Fort Wayne Pistons of the National Basketball Association. In 26 games, he averaged 11.9 points, but his basketball career was cut short by military service; when his enlistment was up, he returned to the Pirates but not to the Pistons.
Groat currently serves as a radio color analyst for the University of Pittsburgh men’s basketball games.
In this inning we’ll open up the Baseball Dictionary
Under the letter: S
Sweet Swing
An easy, fluid, seemingly effortless but effective swing; a graceful, unforced swing in which the batter has good balance.
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Well, that’s it for today’s game of Baseball History Podcast. I’ll see you later at the ballpark.
