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Catching Up With . . .
Bobby Grich, California Angels infielder
October 20, 1986
Posted: Tue May 12, 1998
His
smile
as he high-fived third baseman Doug DeCinces said it all:
Veteran second baseman Bobby Grich was finally headed to
his first World Series. Or so it seemed, after his two-run,
sixth-inning homer put the California Angels ahead of the
Boston Red Sox 3-2
in
Game 5 of the 1986 American League Championship Series. But
three days later, the Angels had blown that game and their
3-1 series lead. A shaken and teary Grich announced his
retirement in the locker room after California's 8-1 loss
in
Game 7. "That series was an emotional roller coaster for
everyone involved," he says. "I thought we had
it."
For 17 seasons the
6'2", 190-pound Grich blended power and grace
as
one of baseball's best second
basemen. He won four straight Gold Gloves (1973 to
'76) as a Baltimore Oriole before signing a five-year,
$1.5 million deal
with California in
November 1976 as one of the 25 players
in baseball's first
class of free agents. In the strike-shortened '81 season, Grich
belted 22 of his 224 career home runs, becoming the first
second baseman in 80 years to lead the league in homers.
Four years later he committed just two errors in 606 total
chances to set the then major league record for fielding
percentage (.997) at his
position.
In retirement Grich, 49, has whittled his golf handicap
down to plus-one while serving as assistant general manager
of the Mission Viejo (Calif.) Vigilantes of the
independent,
Double A-equivalent Western Baseball League. The first inductee
into the Angels Hall of Fame a decade ago, he lost touch
with the team after Disney took it over in May
1996. On April 1, however, Grich and three other former
California stars threw out the ceremonial first pitches at
Edison International Field, the stadium formerly known as
the Big A. As his family—wife Zetta, stepson Brandon, 9,
and daughter Brianna,
3—watched, Grich also put his handprint in a concrete walk
outside the park. Returning to the site of many of his
greatest triumphs reminded him of his most heart-wrenching
defeat, in '86.
"I had been thinking about retiring for a
while," Grich says, "but
when we lost,
I'd had enough.
I was just ready to try something
else."
—by Paul
Gutierrez
photographs by Jason M. Grow/SABA; Jerry Wachter (cover)
Issue date: May 18, 1998
Past Editions of Catching Up With...
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