Rookie

"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 Tigers had announced flatly that Johnny Groth would play center field for them this year. "I took one look at him," explained Manager Robert Rolfe, "and decided instantly." Added "Red" Rolfe: "He may develop into a hell of a ballplayer."

$30,000 & a Formal Education. Johnny Groth has always been a good ballplayer, but until four years ago his game was football. At Chicago Latin School, Johnny was a triple-threat halfback, but never spent much time at baseball. The Navy nabbed him before he could decide which college football scholarship to accept, and sent him to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station.

There, under the physical education program, he started to play baseball seriously and caught the eye of such big leaguers as Cleveland's Bob Feller and

Detroit's Pinky Higgins, who were putting in time at Great Lakes, too. When Johnny got out of the Navy in 1946, he signed a contract with the Tigers (with a $30,000 bonus attached), socked the money away in war bonds, and reported to Williamsport, Pa. the following spring to start his formal education in the game.

In 1948, the Tigers shuffled him off to a higher farm at Buffalo, in the International League, where he played center eld as if he owned it, peppered the pitching for a .340 batting average, and hit 30 home runs. When the Tigers brought him into Briggs Stadium at the tag end of last season, Johnny drew a bead on the first big league ball ever pitched to him and sent it sailing 340 feet into the left-field stands.

"I Got to See More." Red Rolfe does not expect Johnny to hit any .340 "right away in this league." There are still flaws in his batting; he swishes his bat back & forth nervously before each pitch, frequently wastes his power by swinging late. His fielding, too, still lacks polish. "All I hope is that they won't expect miracles this first year," warns a Tiger coach. "I'll bet you right now he'll make half a dozen throws to the wrong base early in the season."

But the Detroit brain trust was ready to overlook an occasional early-season error in judgment from the youngster they hoped would take over Joe DiMaggio's American League center-field crown some day. This week, in an exhibition game, the Yankees' Joe and the Tigers' Johnny got together for the first time. DiMaggio, hobbling by on his sore heel, went to bat as a pinch hitter and drew a walk; Groth got a single in five times at bat, tossed out a Yankee at the plate with a good throw from center field. Did Groth look like an heir apparent? In spite of a mine-run performance that day, he handled himself with confidence; to sportwriters he seemed a good candidate for rookie-of-the-year. DiMag reserved judgment: "I got to see him do more than he did today."

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