Remarkable: one-season performances: here are some extraordinary accomplishments achieved by batters and pitchers that are among the greatest in baseball history

Baseball Digest, Sept, 2005 by George Vass

But that's just part of the story of Grove's remarkable 1931 season. A breakdown of his record shows just how dominant he was in a power-mad period. It was a year in which Lou Gehrig set an A.L. record with 184 RBI, both he and Ruth hit 46 home runs for the Yankees, and Grove's teammate Al Simmons led the league in batting with .390, topping Ruth's .373.

Yet, Grove's ERA was 2.06 compared to the league average of 4.38. He completed 27 of 30 starts, and led the A.L. in strikeouts for a pitching "triple crown." He also relieved in 11 games, going 4-1 with five saves.

If any pitcher ever was almost unbeatable, it was Grove in 1931. He put together a league record-tying 16-game winning streak, and it took a 1-0 shutout by a Browns pitcher to end it, and that only because a rookie outfielder dropped an easy flyball to set up St. Louis' run.

Grove erupted with nasty criticism of his unfortunate teammate. His fierce competitiveness made it impossible for him to take anything about the game lightly, and undoubtedly contributed to his superb career record of 300-141.

"I never saw anything funny about the game," he once growled.

There was certainly nothing "funny" about his performance in 1931, which would be inconceivable of any pitcher today even though it was accomplished in a comparably offensive-oriented period of the game.

Joe "Ducky" Medwick is seldom mentioned these days, other than to note his Triple Crown performance of 1937, or the near-riot he set off by sliding into third base with his spikes leading during the 1934 World Series between the Cardinals and Tigers. He ranks somewhere behind Stan Musial, Rogers Hornsby and others in the Cardinals' pantheon of heroes.

That's a shame, because Medwick enjoyed a spectacular career before a beaning eventually took its toll on his talent. And 1937, the year of his Triple Crown, was the zenith of a Hall of Fame career.

Difficult as it may be to believe, the Triple Crown merely hints at the extent of Medwick's domination of hitting in the N.L. in one of the most remarkable seasons ever for any player.

Medwick led in batting with .374, home runs (31), and runs batted in (154) for the Triple Crown But he also led in games played (156), at-bats (633), runs (111), hits (237), doubles (56), slugging average (.641) and outfielder fielding average (.988). His only shortfall was in triples (10). (He shared the home run title with Mel Ott of the New York Giants.)

Don Gutteridge, a teammate of Medwick's, was quoted by Peter Gammons in the book The Spirit of St. Louis as saying, "... nobody liked Joe. For a while, I thought his personality would keep him out of the Hall of Fame (inducted 1968).

"I liked him because he drove me in all the time ... In '37, Joe won the Triple Crown. That year he couldn't do anything wrong. I actually saw him swing at balls that bounced, seen him hit balls over his eyeballs, up high, outside, but he hit them so hard. He was very strong. He had very strong wrists and arms, and he could hit a ball as hard as anybody, and when he hit it, it just sailed."