Groat Stars Win Here

Cumberland Evening Times

Oct. 20, 1958



There is a facial resemblance, so they say, between Gene Stair and Mickey Mantle.

The Hyndman baseball star also acted like a Mickey Mantle yesterday when he blasted a bases-loaded homer and all but stole the show as the Pen-Mar All-Stars dropped a 10-7 decision to Dick Groat’s barnstormers at Penn Avenue Field.

The grand-slammer came in the second inning at the expense of Roy Face, great relief star of the Pittsburgh Pirates, who pitched the first two frames despite a cold and sore throat.

Stair, who several years ago played Class A ball as a Pirate farmhand, sent a 300-foot smash high over the short right-field fence with Barney Spearman, Joe Glass and Bobby Raines on board. Spearman had reached first on an error, Glass walked and Raines beat out an infield hit.

The jackpot clout gave the Pen-Mar stars a 4-1 lead that held up until the fifth when Nellie Fox and Groat scored to make the count 5 to 4. Four more runs by the barnstormers in the sixth sewed it up.

A crowd of more than 1,500, basking under a 65-degree autumn sun on a cloudless afternoon, was on hand as the barnstormers took the field with six 1958 major leaguers and two former “big top” performers in the lineup.

Groat and Fox, key men in the respective second-place showings of the Pirates in the National League and the White Sox in the American, scored seven of the winners’ ten runs. Fox, who led off, was on base every time. He hit a triple and single, was hit with pitched balls twice and reached first on an error. Groat, the No. 2 hitter, cracked four straight singles and batted in three runs before grounding out his last time.

Raines, Barrelville’s strikeout artist, pitched the first five innings for the Pen-Mar team and was charged with the defeat. He gave up ten hits. Lefty Bill Haberlein of Zihlman was the victim of the barnstormer’s four-run outburst in the sixth, while Bobby Dawson yielded the other tally in the seventh.

Gary Willison, of Saxton, Pa., who won 19 games for Winnipeg in the Northern League this year, followed Face to the mound, pitched two scoreless innings and received credit for the victory. He was followed by lefty Paul Smith, former Pirate, who wound up the 1958 season at Minneapolis. Smith also blanked the Pen-Mar team for two frames. Woody Statler shut out the sandlotters in the seventh. Chuck Tanner, Chicago Cubs outfielder, gave up two runs in the eighth and pitched the final frame and yielded the last run.

Tanner, who caught the fancy of the crowd with his entertaining antics, had two hits, as did Smith and Don Bailey, former Giant farmhand. Ronnie Kline, who won 13 games this year for the Pirates, Bobby Del Greco, who is slated to return to the Yankees next year after spending the past season with Richmond in the International League, Willison and Statler all had a hit apiece. Kline played left field yesterday.

Stair was the only Pen-Mar batter to get more than one safety. He had a single in addition to his four-bagger. Denny Shuck, Zihlman shortstop, clouted a triple. Spearman, Zihlman second-sacker, turned in two nifty putouts of hard-hit balls, Tanner being the victim each time.