Evening star., 1938-05-04
STILL HILL GREAT,
BUT LACKS COLOR
Once Spectacular as Loser
Bob Is Only Effective
as Winner Today.
By GRANTLAND RICE.

1OT II years anu is gTdylHs AT tHe
temples, but he is just about as good
a pitcher as there is in the game right
now-as good hurler even as he was
eight or nine years ago, when he was
pitching the Athletics to pennants.
A curious detail about the amazing
career of this big fellow is that the
longer he goes the less attention he
attracts. AS a youngster he was a
spectacular figure. Now he simply is
an effective one. He gets less lineage
in the newspapers winning an impor-
tant game nowadays than he did blow
Ing any game when he was a busher
It took Grove a couple years under
ma ior league pressure to change from
strong backed. strong armed. hard
headed throWer into pitcher. Bought
by Connie Mack from Jack Dunn Of
the Baltimore club for reported sum
of slO6,0 900. he tried to blow the Amer
ican League hitters down with his fast
ball. as he had done with the hitters
in the International League.
He could do it. too. as long as they
let him pitch his way. He liked to
work fast. And then they discov-
ered-the Yankees were the first to
discover it-that they could throw him
off his stride by slowing him down.
That is. by stepping out of the batter's
box just as he was about to deliver the
ball This made him impatient. and
when that happened, he lost some of
his stuff.
Rivals Beat Groves Count"
Mack tried to beat the other clubs
to the punch by slowing Grove down
himself-telllng him to take it easy
and count 10 before pitching to every
hitter But somebody tipped the other
clubs off to that. and the comedy was
on. The hitter would step to the
plate and count, too, and when he
figured Grove had about reached g,
he would step out of the box. He
would dawdle about for moment or
two and step in and start counting to
himself again-as he knew Grove was
doing-and sometimes the bench
warmers would chant in unison: One.
two, three"
1t was at that time that Grove
found it difficult, especially against
the Yankees, to last five innings. But
Mack and Mickey Cochrane and all
that old Athletic crew went to work
on him and finally got him straight
ened out. and. after year or two, he
was real pitcher.
10O5 ho cta alkcS to
fame and today he Is rated by many
as the best southpaw the American
League has known since the piping
days of Rube Waddell. That is taking
a lot of time and lot of great
pitchers-there were, for instance, a
big left-hander by the name of Babe
Nth and a slender young man by the
name of Herb Pennock who were pretty
good, too. But Grove unquestionably
IS great pitcher, and. when last
seen. gave off no signs of even be-
ginning to slow up,
Age Tempers Pitching Style.
His pitching style has changed, Of
course. It has been tempered by age,
experience and thoughtfulness that
he never had when he was kid In
those days, he Just used to rear back
and fire the ball and he had so much
smoke" on it that nobody could do
much with it, But pitching, as Urban
Shocker-one of the smartest Of all
pitchers-used to say, is a matter OF
here and there: Breaking a ball
on one side of the plate or the other,
depending upon the hitter.
Grove learned that, learned how to
take much of the strain off his arm.
learned how to rate himself over the
nine-inning stretch and win even the
close ones pulled up, instead OF having
to go right down to the last gasp. This.
plus the fact that his pitching arm
has lost none of its strength and vigor,
makes him a hard man to beat.
He won II games last year while
losing 9 and had an earned run re-
cord of only 3.02 and now it looks as
though he is on his way to better
year. At least, that's what the hitters
who have faced him so far think.
One reason why he has had so little
publicity in recent years is that he
rot only hasn't sought it, but also has
done less than his share to encourage
It, Most ball players are approachable
and affable. But not Grove. Nor is
his attitude based on shyness. He
simply is Indifferent The applause
of the fans and the enthusia SINS of
the writers mean less than nothing
to him.
Checks Writers Enthusiasm.
The baseball writer's. having dis
covered this a long while ago. natu-
rally have adopted similar attitude
toward him. They write about what
he does. but they seldom 60 out Of
their way to find out what he thinks,
knowing beforehand that they are
likely to go out of their way for
nothing.
One Of the classic stories about
Grove concerns an incident in St.
Louis during the world series of 1890
A newspaper man who was a great
admirer of Groves and eager to do
a story about him went to the hotel
where the Athletics were quartered
and was looking about for him when,
to his JOY, an elevator door opened
and Grove. the inevitable long-bar-
relied cigar in his mouth. stepped out
The newspaper man rushed up to his
hero and began:
Mr. Grove, I would like to do a
story about you and"
Grove scowled and said to himself,
II knew I shouldn't have come down.
stairs"
And stepped right back in the ele-
vator. the door Of which was slammed
In the newspaper mans face.
(Copyright. 1888. by the North Ameri: An
Newspaper Alliance. Inc.)