Condolences to his family and friends,
Nice memories, Richard.
I saw him play on the 1964 team. And I listened to a bunch of those games in 1964. #24 was a reliable, surehanded shortstop out there. Stable. And watching him doing the hit and run was like a clinic. Brock, or Flood, or Javier would break, Groat is watching the middle infielders, and he'd hit the ball through the hole, it was like Groat was willing the fielder out of the way...
An intelligent, skilled, surehanded, reliable, good ball player. I thought of him as about the best short stop I'd seen, until I saw the then Padres' Ozzie Smith get to a hot shot that then Cardinal Gary Templeton had drilled into the hole for a certain hit, until a diving Ozzie snagged it.
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