Lefty Grove: American Original (review)

Jim Kaplan. Lefty Grove: American Original. Cleveland OH: Society for American Baseball Research. 314 pp. Paper, $12.95.

One might not agree with author Jim Kaplan that Robert Moses "Lefty" Grove (1900-75) was baseball's greatest pitcher, but Kaplan makes some compelling arguments. Walter Johnson, Grove's leading competition for best overall pitcher, and Sandy Koufax, as the best left-hander, make for tantalizing comparisons in the last chapter of this carefully researched and well-written book.

The prior chapters begin with an interesting analysis of the differences between a thrower and a pitcher, setting up Grove's own career progression. A coal miner's son from Lonaconing, a small town in western Maryland, Grove started his baseball pursuits at the relatively advanced age of seventeen. Tall and lanky, he developed a smooth delivery and a blazing fastball that led to a spectacular five-season stint with the Baltimore Orioles of the International League.

Grove made his debut with the Philadelphia Athletics under legendary manager Connie Mack. During his big league career from 1925 to 1941, he had the best earned run average nine times and the top winning percentage five times, both Major League records by a wide margin. Grove also won 20 games or more in seven consecutive seasons, and his 16-game winning streak tied a league mark. With the Athletics, he was one of four future Hall of Fame players--Al Simmons, Jimmie Foxx and Mickey Cochrane were the others--on one of the finest teams ever, winning pennants in 1929-31 and two World Series. In 1931, Grove's record was 31-4, the best in the modernera.

Sold to the Boston Red Sox in 1934 because of the Athletics' Great Depression woes, Grove developed a sore arm. As a result, he transformed from thrower to pitcher, using more breaking balls and change-ups. He wound up with 300 wins (195 for the A's and 105 with Boston).

Kaplan provides a masterful historiography of this fierce competitor. Irascible, with a world-class temper, Grove mellowed with time, and Mack, who said he took more guff from Grove than any other player, eventually came to call him a "nice fellow." Throughout the book, Kaplan segues into fascinating vignettes on game competition, American history, player profiles, and baseball statistics--all nicely paced and well-organized. There are no dead spots in the book, and quotations from people who knew Grove add panache to the narrative.

One such story illustrates Grove's competitive spirit. He used to grip the ball so hard that he commonly had painful blisters and flayed skin. In 1934, the struggling pitcher was getting shelled for 8runs in a loss to Detroit. After he struck out a batter with no one on base, his catcher, Rick Ferrell, threw the ball to the third baseman, Bill Werber, who noticed that there was blood on the ball. So instead of letting the ball go around the infield, he took it to Grove to ask where the blood came from and noticed that there was no skin on the middle finger of his left hand. When Werber told him that he couldn't pitch like that, Grove said, "Get the hell outta here. Gimme the damn ball. Get your ass back to third base."

The era described in the book is one that Americans look back on with nostalgia as one of innocence, where the players were not a breed apart as they sometimes seem today. Grove never made more than $28,000 a year, generous by earlier standards but nothing like the wildly inflated contemporary salaries. Kaplan relates a story in which Grove actually signed a blank contract. He was out hunting with Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey, and they intended to establish Grove's salary for the coming season. Forgetting to do so and anxious to go home, Grove simply signed a blank contract and told...