"Whenever the ballplayers themselves start gabbing about a youngster," said the Yankees' Bill Dickey, "it's a sign he's going to be around a while." Bill Dickey, like a lot of other baseball pros this spring, was talking of Detroit's 22-year-old John Thomas Groth.
A brawny six-footer with massive forearms, Groth seemed equally able to run, hit and throw, and he took a vicious right-handed cut at the ball in a style that reminded some sportwriters of "Ducky" Medwick in his heyday with the St. Louis Cardinals. Before the spring training even began, the Detroit...
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