Lefty Grove

I was watching ESPN yesterday and the topic of Mariano Rivera's retirement announcement came up. Two of the biggest nitwits on that network, Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless, debated Rivera's place in the pantheon of players. I won't get into that, though it's hard for me to put a player who plays only one inning per game high the list, even if Rivera is the best ever at what he does.

What got me slack-jawed was Bayless naming his best all-time starting pitchers: Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, and Randy Johnson. Now, nothing against those guys, and Clemens and Maddux are certainly top ten, while Koufax is a tough case given his short career. But I'm amazed that Bayless included no one pre-World War II, or even the Korean War for that matter.

No Walter Johnson, no Christy Mathewson, no Cy Young, no Grover Alexander. But the pitcher who I think gets the most short shrift on these lists is Lefty Grove, who is the best lefthander of all time and arguably the best pitcher, period.

I'm not sure why Grove gets overlooked. This is all terribly subjective, but the man did win 300 games (on the nose), and has he best winning percentage of anyone in the that club (his record is 300-141). His dominance in the late '20s and early '30s matches the streak of any pitcher, including Koufax: seven straight years leading the league in strikeouts, and nine E.R.A. titles. He is the only pitcher to strike out the side on nine pitches twice in a career. He won the pitching triple crown in back to back years in 1930-31, winning the MVP in '31 with a 31-4 record and 2.06 E.R.A., won of the best pitching seasons ever. One sportswriter said that Grove could throw a lamb chop past a wolf.

Grove was pitching on a winning team most of the time. The Philadelphia A's of that period were one of the most dominant teams in history, which certainly helped his win totals. But that works both ways--maybe the A's were that good because of Grove.

Was he better than other lefthanders like Warren Spahn, Koufax, Steve Carlton, or Randy Johnson? I would say so, but of course stats can be manipulated. He didn't pitch as long as some of those others--only 17 years, (he was a minor league sensation, and only joined the Majors in 1925, when he was 25). After his trade to the Red Sox in 1934 he wasn't as dominant, winning only 20 games once, but still with a sterling winning percentage.

These kind of arguments are part of baseball's charm, as there no proof of anything. But what gores my ox is when supposedly expert people reel off lists and don't bother to go any further back than the invention of television. Baseball, unlike some other sports, doesn't require one to have seen a player to evaluate him.

Oh, and Smith is also an idiot. Rivera, top five in all history? No.