Dick Groat Interview with Mike McGann - Part 3

That’s exactly how I got to play until I went into the Army in February. Don’t ask me how I ended up averaging twelve points a game, because I never practiced with the team, just flew in put on the uniform played and never had more fun in my life. I was lucky enough that one of the coaches Paul Birch, a great player at Duquesne University, was from Pittsburgh and because I had some good games for them I was kind of his fair haired boy. I loved that one year in the NBA and was hoping when I came out of the service that Mr. Rickey would let play in the NBA. In fact  the Pistons wanted to work out a deal where I could play for the Pistons all winter and when spring training opened, I’d go to the Pirates. But Mr. Rickey didn’t have a sense of humor about him and wouldn’t allow it. I had to give up my basketball career even as much as I loved it.

McGann: “ I remember a few years ago asking you why you weren’t a manager or coach or play by play guy for baseball.”

Groat: “ Basketball was easy for me I loved it, baseball was a lot of work for me. I had to work hard at baseball. You know I get more fan mail now than when I played and one of the fans mailed me a magazine. Lou Boudreau, whom I looked up to as he was a shortstop in Cleveland and played college basketball in the Big Ten, said in a sporting magazine, “Dick Groat was the number one team player in all of baseball.’ This was after my eleven years with the Pirates and after my first year with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1963. He wet on to talk about me being a leader  and I’m now convinced looking back at age 80, that you can be a leader without yelling or screaming if you lead by example. My first year with the Cardinals was the greatest year I ever had in baseball, even better then the 1960 season. One of the reason was I hit on front of Stan Musial, so nobody was going to walk me to get to Musial. I was fighting for my second batting

title, we got within a game and a half of first place late in year and I finished second in the Most

Valuable Player voting. Two guys I played with and really respected, Curt Flood and Bob Gibson, came to me after we had been virtually eliminated from the national leagues title by being swept in a three game series with the Dodgers. We had a lock on 2nd place but couldn’t catch them.

They paid me the greatest compliment I had ever received, they said, “dick will you please go for yourself and go after the batting title? You came here and taught us how to win; you’ve given yourself up for us with bunts, sacrifices, taking strikes you could have hit, advancing runners by hitting to places that made teams throw you out at first and that’s how we’ve become a winning team.’ We went from sixth to second and eventually won the World Series in 1964. But they said that tome after my first year with the team and coming from those two great players, I thought how lucky can a guy be?” St. Louis turned out to be the greatest organization I played for in my career in every way. They treated us so well, you traveled better, they paid you better and they went out of their way to take care of your family. How lucky could you be. The I come home and work for Jessup Steel and I was financially struggling as we had gotten involved with the golf course (Champion Lakes with former player Jerry Lynch), we had poured a ton of money into it.

That’s when an angel named Bill Hilgrove and coach Tim Grgurich come along and offer me

a chance to get back to my first love and broadcast basketball. It has been an absolute dream for the last thirty two years. I have enjoyed every minute of it and it’s helped to keep me young.”

Mcgann: “ Many people do not realize that you and Maz (Bill Mazeroski) hold some records or at least set the standard by leading the league in double plays 5 years in a  row. At Duke you held
a few records too.”

Groat: I don’t know really, I do know that I was supposedly, the only person to lead the country in scoring and assists in same year.”

McGann: “You are in the Duke Hall of Fame. The College Basketball Hall of Fame”

Groat: “yes, and this summer I’m being inducted into the College Baseball Hall of Fame. I didn’t even know there was such a place, believe it or not.”

McGann: “Does it bother you that you are not in Cooperstown?”

Groat: “No, to me Cooperstown is for the super stars, I was never a superstar. I was a pretty good Major League baseball player. Those guys were in a  different world than I was, people like Stan Musial and Roberto Clemente, Mazeroski, the greatest second baseman the game has ever had,

 I’ve evaluated it over the years as I’ve gotten older and Im not stupid. First of all I didn’t have speed, I was still looking for my third infield hit after 14 years in the league (laughing). Secondly, I didn’t have a great arm until I went to the Cardinals. I was so upset that Joe Brown had traded me I went to the gym and work on it. Ken Boyer (third baseman for the Cardinals) said, ‘I never thought you had an arm that good.’ I said,’ I didn’t until I came here.’ I didn’t have power. So if you didn’t have speed, didn’t have a great arm and didn’t have power you aren’t a superstar. I had to study every hitter in the national league to know where to play them because I didn’t have the speed. In basketball nobody knows you are slow if the first two steps are quick. After two steps you are by someone defending you, they can’t catch you because you aren’t working on a big

area. In baseball that 90 feet got longer and longer for me the way I ran (laughing). I just couldn’t run, Mike. I realized this, I could play good defense and was a good ball handler and even though I was only six feet tall I could do the skills you need to be a good basketball player. After my first year on the Duke team I came home and developed a jump shot and played 30 or 40 games that summer because in those days western Pennsylvania had all kinds of tournaments. I ended up playing with a lot of Pitt and Duquesne players. I played far more basketball then I ever played baseball games. It was all those games that helped me average 25 points a game and become the leading scorer one year and set the record for most points in a year as a junior with 831 points. My senior year I didn’t play as many full games and averaged 26 points a game. Bob Knight asked me if I realized how far ahead of the game I was back then he said,” That man, Dick Groat, could play today. Think back to the things you were doing then in your game, that they are now doing today 50 years later.’

            I was watching a college game on television one evening and Bob Knight was talking about the college players in the game as the camera showed Bill Hilgrove and Dick Groat sitting at the broadcast table. The other announcers were talking about each player on the opposing teams highlighting their strengths and talking about who was the best of the group. Bob Knight said “There (referring to the camera shot of Groat) that’s the best player on the floor, Dick Groat.’

McGann: “It’s been said you were as good as (Bob) Cousey, Slater Martin and any other guard in the NBA in the 1950s. Do you take that with a grain of salt or do you think you could have competed with them?”

Groat: I know I could compete with them. I played against Cousey and Martin. Cousey beat me the first time. The next game it turned around and I schooled him. Hilgrove is the one who said that by the way, because Red Auerbach said that to Bill. First of all Cousey was my idol. H ewas the best point guard, passer and ball handler I’ve seen yet. Now I’m supposed top pressure him full court. Cousey pulls off his behind the back pass and the score. next time down the floor he won’t come over the time line, sort of taunting me. I wasn’t happy about that. The next time we play, he has to press me so it’s my turn. I swear to you Mike, as I live and breathe, I don’t believe showing a guy up. Like in baseball I could hit and run on my own, but you don’t do it when you are two runs ahead. You don’t show people up, now they do it all the time today. But that second time against Cousey, I went by him then went by him again and thats the only time I ever threw a pass behind my back and the guy got a lay up and scored. When the ball came out of the net Cousey said; 'Okay Dick, we’re even.’ So he knew what he had done before to me, (laughing) and he knew what I was doing and that is the only time I ever tried to show anyone up or make them look bad. I just don’t believe in it

McGann: “You and Maz (Bill Mazeroski) have stayed friends I know. The night at Latrobe Country Club when Arnold Palmer gave you a Humanitarian Award for supporting his charities  the three of us were talking and it seemed as though you and Maz have never drifted apart. How much contact do you have with other friends from baseball?”

Groat: “ I call Bob Skinner, and I call Bill Virdon constantly. I panicked when Maz couldn’t be at one of our gatherings this year when he was in the hospital for 10 days. He’s okay but I was worried and in touch with him quite often through his wife. He’s fine now.”

McGann: “ let’s talk about Roberto Clemente, you and he both stars of the team, you’re headed for the batting title and MVP, he is probably the greatest right fielder of all time, yet there were many who said he wasn’t as intense as he could have most of the time and if he had applied that intensity he would have been the greatest outfielder of all time.”proved to the world in the 1971 Groat: “He was the greatest God given talent I ever saw on a baseball field, bar none. He finally World Series how great he really was. He put the Pirates on his shoulders and practically won the series by himself. He was that great of a talent and I mean that in every way. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do in baseball. Had he wanted to he could have led the league in home runs or stolen bases or both at same time. There was nothing Bobby couldn’t do better than anyone out there including Henry Aaron or Frank Robinson or anyone. God given talent he was the best.”

McGann: Recently I looked at my older photos of the 1960 team. That was a pretty talented bunch of guys. Strong at every position with few stars. Mickey Mantle said that losing to the Pirates in 1960 was the biggest disappointment of his career. That is a pretty big compliment to the Pirates who played on that team.

Groat:  No question about it, the Yankees were a great ball club. You don’t dominate the American league year after year and not be great. This was one of the greatest Yankee teams of all time. They didn’t make mistakes. Top to bottom a great line up. Bu,t given the opportunity, we found a way to score; we didn’t leave runners on second base with no outs, we got them to third base and then someone brought them home. That becomes contagious on a team, everyone in that Pirate line up played the game that way. In fact when Joe Brown and I, where there was no love lost,  mended fences and buried the hatchet the summer before he died. He paid me a great compliment when he said, 'You made one of the greatest plays I have ever seen in baseball. We were in Connie Mack stadium.’  I knew exactly the play he was going to talk about because Baseball Digest had an entire article in 1958 by Mayo Smith describing the play. He couldn’t believe the play. It was the ninth inning, we had a two run lead. The Phillies had runners on first  and second and there are two outs. The ball was hit to the left of third baseman Frank Thomas, it takes a big hop he grabs the ball, should be the third out and as I’m circling behind him as back up, the second he lets go of the ball, I think oh no the ball sales over everybody’s head and bounces off the railing and rolls down the right field line. I got no where to go as Im near third base. I just kept going and there I was standing in front of the Philadelphia dugout. I know Clemente is going to air it out and sure enough he throws the ball over the cut off man , over the pitcher  and over the catchers head. I catch the ball and throw it to home plate and the runner trying to tie the game is tagged out and we won. Mayo Smith wondered in the article what a short stop doing backing up home plate and saving the game? (laughing again)

McGann:  So let’s fast forward, the baseball careers ends and  at the golf course you owned with former teammate and great pinch hitter, Jerry Lynch, is doing well. Along comes Bill Hilgrove and Tim Grgurich with an offer for you to do Pitt Panther basketball and you get to see it grow  into a national contender year after year in the Big East. How does that feel to you.

Groat: I’ve loved every minute of it Mike, honestly. The last eight years under Jaime Dixon after Ben Howland started it all, has been a great time. Dixon is a very special person,

magnificent teacher , he loves to recruit and handles people very well. He gets the best out his

players. He  has made these years the dream era of Pitt basketball.People used to ask me who is the best manager you ever played for and I’d say Danny Murtaugh. He got the best out of the 25 players he had.  Pitt has gone to 10 straight NCAA appearances. No coach in NCAA Division I has won 27 games a season for eight consecutive years. That’s phenomenal. When I played, coaches were considered great if the won 100 game in their first 5 years. He’s won more games in eight than any other coaches including John Wooden. He’s made me a believer. you can quote me on this, I truly believe there will be a day when Jamie Dixon’s name will be written on the floor of the Peterson Event Center, just as Mike Krzyzewski is at Duke and Jim Boeheim is at Syracuse. I just think he is that solid and he’s become a Pittsburgher and he and his family love it here.

McGann:  Something most people don’t know is that you were a pretty mean trumpet player in your day. John Pizzarelli told me he wants you to play horn with him and since he wanted to play baseball, that you have to play catch with him.

Groat: That was years ago (laughing). I hate to tell you this but the last time I played trumpet, ever, my friend Bennie Bennack, who  was a trumpet player and he would call me when one of the Elgarts was in town and we’d go hear them. Well the night we won the series we had enough champagne in the locker room and at the after party at Hotel Webster Hall, he hands me his trumpet and starts dancing with his wife. There I am, having not played in years , and I play a few songs but my range kept going down and down and down. (laughing at himself as he bends lower and lower). I loved the trumpet because as you know I loved the big band era. I  have been the luckiest guy in the world. Harry James was a music God when I was growing up and when I was with the Cardinals he came into the locker room and sat with me for a half an hour talking. Now

he didn’t know I was a trumpet player until I finally told him. To show you what a nice guy he was, when we came back from the next road trip there was a package he sent to me. It contained all the albums he ever recorded. I think every trumpet player in the world looked up to him . Wow, Harry James.

McGann:  MVP, batting titles, two world series rings, a basketball legend. Are you a scratch golfer too?

Groat: Not quite, I was a two or three handicap. I can’t play a lick anymore.

McGann : What’s the one thing in life you’d like to do that you haven’t, you still have time?

Groat: (snickering)  I’d like to shoot my age on a golf course (80) which I don’t know if I can do anymore. My own golf course keeps getting longer and longer every year and I know it hasn’t been redesigned.

McGann: How much longer will you keep broadcasting basketball?

Groat: As long as i can do it well and my mind and speech are sound. Just being around the kids playing the game keeps me young. I enjoy and respect those kids. I hope they respect me because I live and die with what they do on the court.

McGann : You and Bill are fans as well as announcers and yet I along with the homer attitude on the air, I always hear a sense of fairness.

When people ask me about fairness I usually say ,’Hey we grew up with Bob Prince, what would you expect us to be. We loved him and respected him thought he was one of the greatest guys in the world. If we weren’t homers he’d be looking down on us saying, ‘If you are not a homer

Dick, I’d be disappointed in you. Everybody loved Bob.

McGann:   If you leave a legacy what do you want it to be? What do you want your grand kids and friends kids to think about Dick Groat?

Groat:  I’ve thought about this a lot as I’ve gotten older. As an athlete I want to be remembered as a winner more than anything else. To be successful takes a lot pride and hard work. There are no shortcuts in life.