Coming Home to Lonaconing

In 1929, Grove opened Lefty's Place, a duckpin and ten-pin bowling alley and pool hall on Union Street in Lonaconing, and he operated it, with help during baseball season, until 1961. He also managed the Lonaconing Republican Club team, the Republicans, in the local Bi-State League, supported youth baseball in the George's Creek area, and donated equipment to various teams, including John Meyers' Valley High School team when the school opened near Lonaconing, Md., in 1953. Grove gave his 1931 American League MVP trophy and his B'nai B'rith Award, given by the Boston Sports Lodge in 1955, to Valley High School principal Jack Petree, and those awards, along with a mural and photographs and other memorabilia such as his golf club, an autographed baseball, and vintage baseball cards, are displayed at the Georges Creek Regional Library. Despite requests from the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., he insisted that the MVP trophy remain in his hometown. Grove kept a residence in Lonaconing throughout his baseball career, and after the death of his wife Ethyl, he moved to Norwalk, Ohio, to live with his son Bobby and daughter-in-law Jean. He spent the last 14 years of his life in Norwalk and died on May 22, 1975. More than 350 mourners attended his viewing in Lonaconing, where Ted Williams sent a three-foot-diameter floral baseball, and during services at the Lonaconing Presbyterian Church, Baseball Hall of Fame president Kenneth Smith called him the best left-handed pitcher in baseball history. Grove was buried in Frostburg Memorial Park in Frostburg, Md., about 8 miles from his hometown, and in 1981 John Jack Dunn III of the Baltimore Orioles, Grove's daughter Doris Monnett, and Judge James S. Getty honored his memory with a dedication ceremony and bronze plaque at Lonaconing's Furnace Park.

Lonaconing, Maryland · United States