Philadelphia Athletics (1925 - 1933)

In 1925, after four-and-a-half years in the minor leagues with the Baltimore Orioles, Grove began his major league career with Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics. Although he struggled with pitching control in his rookie year and finished 10-12, the only losing season of his professional career, he led the American League in strikeouts that year and did so for the next six seasons. As his fastball control improved, he rose to greatness, posting seven consecutive twenty-plus-win seasons from 1927 to 1933. On Aug. 23, 1928, he became the seventh pitcher in baseball history to throw an immaculate inning, striking out all three batters in one inning on nine pitches, and on Sept. 27 he became the first pitcher to do it twice, a same-season record he still holds. As the Athletics reached their peak, appearing in three straight World Series from 1929 to 1931 and winning the first two, Grove twice won baseball's Triple Crown in those three years by leading the league in wins, strikeouts, and earned run average. His 31-4 record in 1931 earned him the first American League MVP trophy awarded by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Over 1930 and 1931, he compiled a 59-9 record, won eighty-seven percent of his starts, and posted 49 complete games. At the close of the 1931 season, he joined other major leaguers on a goodwill tour of Japan. An arm injury in 1933 cost him his signature fastball, but by developing a strong curveball and forkball he remade himself into more than a power pitcher. Four of his record nine earned run average titles came after that, and he also played in the first major league All-Star Game in 1933 on July 6 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

Lonaconing, Maryland · United States