Bill Hillgrove was witness to Dick Groat's toughness

Dick Groat, who died Thursday of complications from a stroke at the age of 92, played baseball and basketball with equal flair.

• Baseball MVP, two-time World Series champion and 14-year MLB pro with the Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals.

• Star basketball player at Duke, college Hall of Famer in both sports and first-round draft choice of the NBA’s Fort Wayne Pistons in 1952.

Groat was as tough as he was skilled, and legendary play-by-play man Bill Hillgrove was a first-hand witness to that fact during a game in which Groat wasn’t even playing.

Groat sat next to Hillgrove for 40 years broadcasting Pitt basketball games on radio. It was Hillgrove who suggested to then-Pitt coach Tim Grgurich in 1979 that Groat was perfect for the job of color analyst.

One night in 2011 during an NCAA Tournament game in Washington D.C., Pitt’s Nasir Robinson chased a loose ball that was bouncing toward the table where Groat and Hillgrove were sitting.

“(Robinson) ended up in Dick’s lap, 225 pounds of basketball player,” Hillgrove said. “The chair went over backward. Thank God, he didn’t hit his head.”

When Hillgrove fearfully asked Groat if he was hurt, the 80-year-old man looked up at him and said, defiantly, “I’ve taken harder charges.”

It was apparent to all who knew him that basketball was Groat’s first love.

“Baseball, he had to work at. Basketball came naturally to him,” said Hillgrove, who knew Groat since the late 1960s.

Hillgrove said Groat was heartbroken when Pirates general manager Branch Rickey came to him in 1952 with an ultimatum.

“Your legs won’t take the pounding (of playing two sports on a professional level),” Hillgrove said Rickey told Groat. “You better make a choice.”

Hillgrove said Groat’s father told his son, “Baseball’s a sure thing. The NBA, we’re not sure where that’s going to go.”

Groat pointed out to Rickey that Gene Conley played both sports, and, 10 years later, Dave DeBusschere did the same.

But they were pitchers. Groat played 1,929 games (1,802 at shortstop) with the Pirates and Cardinals, not counting the 1960 and 1964 World Series.

“With a little bit of hesitance, he chose baseball,” Hillgrove said.

Good choice. Groat was a five-time All-Star, National League MVP with the Pirates in 1960 and second to Sandy Koufax in MVP voting in 1963. He retired with a lifetime .286 batting average and 2,138 hits.

How good was Groat at two sports? Within four months as a rookie in 1952, he was five for five at bat with the Pirates and scored 25 points for the Pistons.

Hillgrove likes to tell the story of the day Groat introduced him to the great Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach.

During Pitt’s days in the Eastern 8, the team had an off day between games at Rhode Island and UMass. Groat took Hillgrove to Celtics practice to meet Auerbach, who was Groat’s freshman coach at Duke.

There at the shootaround were Bill Russell, John Havlicek, Larry Bird, Danny Ainge, K.C. Jones, Kevin McHale and Robert Parrish.

“I’m gaga,” Hillgrove said. “The thing’s over, and we go back in the hallway, and here comes Dick out of Red’s office.”

After the introductions, Auerbach asked Hillgrove, “Do you know how good he was (in basketball)?”

“I said, ‘Yeah, he was pretty good.’

“I’ll tell you how good he was,” Auerbach responded. “If he stays with the big ball, instead of that stupid little ball, he’s at least as good as (Bob) Cousy. And if you ever quote me publicly, I’ll call you a (expletive) liar. That’s exactly what he said. His mouth to my ears.”

Of course, suggesting anyone was as good as Cousy was tantamount to heresy in Boston, Hillgrove said.

Another time, Hillgrove and his brother and Groat walked into a South Bend, Ind., restaurant the night before a Pitt/Notre Dame game.

Sitting at a table were Bobby Knight and Digger Phelps.

“When they saw Dick, we lost him,” Hillgrove said. “My brother and I had to eat by ourselves. They commandeered Dick Groat. That’s the kind of respectful treatment he received in the basketball community.

“The bottom line on Dick was as great a legend he was in sports, he was a better human being.”