Friday Rewind: Six Degrees of Dick Groat

Dick Groat was quite a man. He was not gifted with particularly great athleticism — he stood only about 5-foot-11, wasn’t especially fast, as a hitter he lacked power, as a basketball player he lacked explosiveness — and yet, the man won an MVP Award, came close to winning another, played in both the NBA and MLB, almost singlehandedly led his Army team to championships in both baseball and basketball, and is a member of both the College Basketball AND College Baseball Halls of Fame.

Groat loved basketball more; he would say that he rarely felt happier or more alive than when he was on the court. But he knew baseball was his ticket. He grew up just six or so miles away from Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, and after his junior season at Duke, Pirates general manager Branch Rickey offered him a contract to play.

“Sign now,” Rickey said, “and you’ll be the starting shortstop tonight against the Giants.”

Groat declined. He said that he had received a scholarship from Duke and owed the school four years. He signed one year later, though, and sure enough, skipped right over the minor leagues. His first start was June 19, 1952, just after he graduated from Duke. He was 21 years old. He went two-for-four with a run and two RBIs.

He wanted to pursue both sports, but Rickey talked him out of it … or bullied him out of it.

In 1960, he won the MVP award as the Pirates won it all. There were three good MVP choices on that Pirates team — Roberto Clemente (who hit .314/.357/.458 and should have won the Gold Glove), Don Hoak (who hit .282/.366/.445 with 97 runs) and Groat (who won the batting title at .325 and teamed up with Bill Mazeroski to form an impenetrable double-play combination). Groat was generally viewed as the team leader, and he won the award.

In retrospect, yes, this was another one of those years when Willie Mays was the clear choice, but this was a time when the award HAD to go to someone on the Pirates because they had shocked everybody by winning the pennant and then the World Series. That was probably not even Groat’s best season; in 1963, after getting traded to St. Louis, he hit .319/.377/.450 with a league-leading 43 doubles.

When he finished his baseball career, Groat became obsessed with golf and became something like a three or four handicap. He had a big impact on golf, too. In the 1970s, his nephew Bob would come to stay with him and his daughters in the summertime, and Dick would take Bob out to the golf course that he and teammate Jerry Lynch had designed, called “Champions Lake.” Bob fell in love with golf and later taught the game to his two sons.

Bob was Bob Koepka. And one of those two sons is Brooks Koepka.

Dick Groat was a consummate gentleman who would show up at sporting events all the time and exude class and modesty and decency. He passed away on Thursday. He was 92 years old.

Groat was an eight-time All-Star and a two-time World Series champion. (Hy Peskin/Getty Images)

What the heck is happening in St. Louis?

It’s hard to put a value rating on a baseball manager. I’ve asked around for years, and gotten answers from “A good manager is worth up to 10 wins a year,” to “Basically, you just don’t want a manager to lose games for you.”

All of which brings us to Cardinals’ manager Oliver Marmol. He seemed to get quite a bit of praise last year after he replaced Mike Schildt — at 35, he became the youngest manager in baseball — and the Cardinals won 93 games and the division title. I don’t know how good a job he actually did, because he didn’t seem to do much of anything that stood out. When I asked a Cardinals fan friend about Marmol, he said, and I quote, “Eh. Seems fine.”

So there you go.

But this year, Marmol has become a lot more noticeable. Back in early April, he decided to call out one of his best players, Tyler O’Neill, for not going as hard as he could when he tried (and failed) to score from second.

“That’s not our style of play as far as the effort rounding the bag there,” he said to the media. “It’s unacceptable.”

There were others who agreed that O’Neill did not go all out on the play, but publicly bashing a player like that is a bold move … there’d better be some three-dimensional chess thinking if you’re going to do something like that. Unfortunately, it seems that Marmol was just speaking out of anger and frustration, which probably won’t play well with the players who actually have to win games.

“I’m not out there to dog it at all,” O’Neill said. “Those are pretty strong words from him. So, uh, good to know.”

O’Neill did not start the next game. Marmol talked about the Cardinals’ high standard. “You meet it, you play,” he said. “You don’t meet it, you don’t play.” O’Neill, meanwhile, said it was a scheduled day off.

“These conversations definitely could have been had in-house and not gotten out on the loose like they have,” O’Neill said.

The two publicly made up, with Marmol saying something about how it’s his job to get O’Neill to reach his potential and O’Neill saying that it was all behind them.

But is it? The Cardinals are losing close games, and they just sent their phenom, Jordan Walker, back to the minor leagues, probably to learn how to play the outfield (he’s a natural third baseman, and it was not going well for him out in rightfield). They’re not scoring runs, even though they’re third in the league in OPS. Their bullpen has been pretty disastrous, and their starting pitching hasn’t been a whole lot better.

How much of this is within Marmol’s control? Probably very little. But with the O’Neill drama, he put himself front and center, and that’s where he’ll stay as long as the Cardinals keep underachieving.

Hey, if you feel like it, I’d love if you’d share this post with your friends!

Not getting any better for Soto

Another crummy week for Juan Soto (.182/.280/.282 with four singles, three walks and 10 strikeouts in 25 plate appearances), and it feels like everybody across baseball is trying to come up with answers for him.

It does seem like he’s hitting into some bad luck, but he’s also striking out 26% of the time, almost double his strikeout percentage of the last three years.

I was talking with someone in the game about this … and he made a fascinating argument that Soto’s greatness springs directly from his incredible plate discipline. What does he mean by that? Well, we all know that Soto has a historically unique ability to draw walks; that’s what earned him all of the Ted Williams comparisons. And when he gets a center-cut pitch, he knows exactly what to do with it.

But, my friend’s argument goes: Soto’s pure hitting ability and pure power is NOT quite elite, not in the class with, say, Mike Trout or Ronald Acuña Jr. or Yordan Alvarez or Manny Machado or Freddie Freeman or Aaron Judge or hitters of that ilk. Those guys can do damage on all sorts of pitches. Soto, my friend believes, cannot. Soto’s greatness is built on extreme patience and driving pitchers’ mistakes. When he does try to go out of his comfort zone, it leads to a lot of ground balls, flyouts and strikeouts.

All of which, my friend says, messes with the mind and confidence. Soto realizes that going out of the zone, being more aggressive, leads to more outs. So maybe he becomes less aggressive, waits only on the perfect pitch. Makes sense, right? Soto is only swinging at 54.4% of pitches in the strike zone, way below league average and way below his normal percentage, and his hard-hit percentage is actually up.

But that isn’t working for him, either — he leads the league in walks but is hitting .183 and slugging .344. He looks tentative. He’s got people screaming in his ear to be more aggressive, but he doesn’t have any belief that will lead to better results. It’s a weird place to be for such an accomplished young hitter.

I choose to believe that he will figure it out and find his balance, but it’s probably not as easy as many might make it sound.

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Joe

Bottoms Up: The Reverse Power Rankings

1. Lost Vegas A’s (5-21) — Another dismal week for baseball in Oakland.

2. Royals (6-20) — The ceaseless positivity that announcer Rex Hudler brings is … confusing?

3. White Sox (7-19) — Their window of promise is now slammed shut.

4. Tigers (9-15) — That American League Central — yuck.

5. Rockies (8-18) — Might be time to get rid of the humidor and score some runs.

6. Nationals (9-15) — Their best power hitter really seems to be Jeimer Candelario.

7. Reds (10-15) — Had a magnificent sweep of the Rangers with two walkoff wins!

8. Giants (11-14) — Pitching staff really isn’t too bad; they could move down the list.

9. Marlins (13-13) — A 7-0 record in one-run games is inflating that overall record.

10. Padres (13-14) — Actually playing worse than their mediocre record.

11. Cardinals (10-16) — I like that they have a lineup with two Nolans in it.

12. Mariners (11-14) — After defying gravity in 2021-22, they can’t win one-run games.

13. Guardians (12-13) — Only 13 home runs all season; that’s a real problem.

14. Phillies (13-13) — Good news week: Bryce Harper and Ranger Suarez returning?

15. Red Sox (13-13) — Monster week for Masataka Yoshida (.464/464/.821).

16. Diamondbacks (14-12) — Corbin Carroll is so fun; the D-Backs are on the rise.

17. Angels (14-12) — Is Shohei going to win the Cy Young? Maybe.

18. Dodgers (13-13) — Does it seem like every Dodger has been on paternity leave?

19. Yankees (15-11) — Is Gerrit Cole going to win the Cy Young? Maybe.

20. Rangers (14-11) — Blew three straight leads in Cincinnati but are still playing well.

21. Mets (15-11) — Justin Verlander is making his rehab start today.

22. Twins (15-11) — They took the season series from the Yankees; it’s a great year.

23. Astros (14-11) — Swept Atlanta, took two of three from TB, cue the Jaws music.

24. Cubs (14-10) — Is Justin Steele going to win the Cy Young? Really?

25. Blue Jays (16-9) — Finally got off to a solid start, that has to feel good.

26. Brewers (16-9) — How about a strong early comeback season from Wade Miley?

27. Orioles (17-8) — Is it the magic of Adley Rutschman? Probably.

28. Pirates (18-8) — If only we could stop time and keep the Pirates here forever.

29. Braves (17-9) — Ronald Acuña Jr. is an absurdity.

30. Rays (21-5) — Still lead the league in most runs scored and fewest allowed.

Why We Love Baseball Update

As I showed early in the week, I got the first pass pages for WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL this week — these are the fully designed and typeset pages for me to edit for small corrections. This is a big one for an author; the book is now something more than just a thing in my mind.

Next, there will be early digital (and a few physical) galleys sent out to various early readers (like reviewers). I’m still looking to see if I will be able to get any of those to put into some sort of contest for you. I’ll keep you updated. The real book (which will be beautiful, I have to say) comes out on Sept. 5.

In the meantime, there are a couple of offers to mention.

There is, of course, the Rainy Day Books offer — preorder the book from Rainy Day and you can have it signed and inscribed with any inscription you want (130 characters or less). Would you like a 130-character description of your favorite moment in baseball history? You got it! What if that moment is your kid hitting a home run? Still, you got it! What if that moment is Derek Jeter doing something good? STILL, you got it.

What if Derek Jeter IS your kid? Yep, I’ll still do it.

Remember, we are trying to beat Mike Schur’s presale record. I’m not saying this is the most important thing in the entire world, I mean, come on, obviously it’s no higher than third or fourth on the list.

If saving money is your thing, well, today is the last day to get 25% off the price if you order from Barnes & Noble and enter the promo code PREORDER25 (one word) at checkout.

And, hey, if convenience is your thing, look, you absolutely can preorder from your local bookstore, Amazon, Bookshop.org, Books a Million, Hudson, Target, believe me, I love ALL booksellers.

Oh, and we’re still putting together the book tour, and if you would like me to come to your town, I’d love to do it. You can express your interest to your local bookstore or group and you can also reach out to my super-awesome publicist, Jamie.

A Final Word

I don’t have any idea what they’re doing with “Ted Lasso” this season. Like, the whole season has been utterly baffling to me. They’ve introduced characters that seem to serve no purpose (and then gotten rid of them immediately); they’ve separated out Keeley from the rest of the cast (are they pitching a new show for her?); they’ve demanded that we start rooting for Nate now, even though they spent pretty much all of last season showing that he’s the worst; and they’ve downplayed the role of Roy, who was pretty much everybody’s favorite character (where is his delightful niece? Where are the women he watches reality shows with?).

I haven’t understood any of the choices they’ve made so far. Maybe they will come together before the season ends, I don’t know.

But here’s the thing: The first 40 minutes of this week’s episode, which I will not spoil for you, was, in my view, the lowest point in the show’s history.

And the last 20 or so minutes were pure magic, as good as the show has ever been.

I guess at the end of the day: THAT’S “Ted Lasso.” In so many ways, it shouldn’t work. But then it comes together so sweetly and so magnificently that you just feel your heart soar. I don’t think there’s ever been a television show quite like it.