Robert "Lefty" Grove was a Major League Baseball pitcher in the late 1920s and 30s. I'm not going to get into his biography because I don't know much about him, you can check out Wikipedia for his full bio. I was researching ERA leaders throughout the years for an ongoing investigation into spin rates, sticky stuff and related stats when I noticed  Lefty Groves' name in a long stretch of years. From 1929 until 1939 Robert "Lefty" Grove won the ERA title a whopping eight times! including 4 straight years from 1929 until 1932! He plkayed for the Philadelphia Athletics during those four years. The ERA title was won by Mel Harder in 1933 and as I read the ERA winner for 1934 I thought Wikipedia made a mistake because the name was Lefty Gomez, assuming it was supposed to be Lefty Grove, yet I continued reading the list and noticed that the other Lefty, Gomez, actually won it again in 1937, snapping the original Lefty, Groves' streak of consecutive titles while with the Boston Red Sox in 1935-36! I also realized that Gomez played for the Yankees. That must have been some rivalry! The original Lefty, well at least for me, Grove, went on to win the ERA title again in 1938 and 39! He ended his career with 300 wins and 141 losses, a lifetime ERA of 3.02 and 8 ERA titles in an 11 year span! I should also note that in 1931 while with the As he won the American league MVP. His stat line for that year is unbelievable. I will share a few of them that I found courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com:

41 Games started 27 complete games 4 shut outs 175 strike outs 61 Base on balls issued 

31 Wins 4 Losses 2.06 ERA 

Those numbers are staggering! Especially if you compared them to todays standards. His 27 Complete games are more than the entire League, both American and National leaders have had in a five year span from 2017-2021! The American League leader for Complete games last year had 2!

Robert "lefty" Grove won three world series' with the A's and had a stellar Major League Baseball career. I went from researching spin rates to finding a pitcher worthy of mention. I am going to end this piece on Lefty Groves and start doing some research on Lefty Gomez. This is yet another reason why I love Baseball so much, it is rich in history and full of great personalities from every walk of life. I love the fact that even with a pretty extensive knowledge of the game I can learn something new about it or one of it's many stars every single day. I truly am a student of Baseball and will be my entire life. 

A few last notes on Lefty Grove that I discovered over at Wikipedia, he owns the record for striking out the most in a 9 inning game, he whiffed in all 5 of his at bats in one game!

He won the Pitcher's Triple Crown 2 times. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1947.

and last but certainly not least, He was voted the starting left handed pitcher for Baseball's 100th Anniversary all time team.