Dick Groat Rest in Peace

[booth]

Dick Groat, one of the best baseball players of the 50s & 60s passed away at the age of 92. He was an All-American in baseball & basketball at Duke University.

Longtime Pirates shortstop and Duke basketball star Dick Groat dies at 92

Dick Groat, who set the NCAA single-season scoring record before spending 14 seasons in Major League Baseball, died Thursday after complications from a stroke.

sports.yahoo.com

 

[Don Wassall]

Groat had an outstanding baseball career and was also the third overall pick of the 1952 NBA draft and played for the Fort Wayne Pistons before serving in the military for two years and then becoming strictly a baseball player. He was a fixture in sports in the Pittsburgh area all of his life and was a true gentleman. He was the NL MVP in 1960. I wonder how many players from that legendary 1960 Pirates team are still alive now besides Bill Mazeroski. The Pirates won their first pennant since 1927 that year and then beat the powerhouse Yankees despite being heavily outscored in the three games the Yankees won before Mazeroski hit a homerun in the bottom of the ninth in Game 7 to win the Series. Pittsburgh residents celebrated big time downtown, with pictures showing almost all of them to be White. If the Pirates ever win again the demographic celebrating will be much different as few Whites would feel safe enough to partake these days.

RIP Dick Groat

 

[sport historian]

I well remember Dick Groat. I saw him play in person when he was with the Cardinals.