(On occasion, I’ve shared some of my writing from other projects in this space [see pieces on Detroit PSL basketball stars Curtis Jones {here} and Spencer Haywood {here}]. As it’s baseball season now, it seemed timely to share one that focuses on a baseball player. My longtime friend Mike McClary approached me in 2021 about helping with a request he’d received from the Society for American Baseball Research [SABR] to updatie a previous biography he’d written about Johnny Grubb. The update was to include Grubb’s work with the Colorado Silver Bullets women’s baseball team. Over the next few posts, I’ll share my collaboration with Mike about Grubb that, to date, has not been published by the SABR Bio Project. Check out Mike’s Detroit Tigers-focused work at The Daily Fungo.)
Like most folks, Johnny Grubb didn’t have the foggiest idea who – or what – the Colorado Silver Bullets were when future Hall of Famer and former co-worker with the Richmond Braves (Atlanta’s Triple-A affiliate), Phil Niekro, reached out early in 1994 to see if he’d be interested in serving as a hitting and outfield coach with the upstart soon-to-be barnstorming group of women baseball players.
“I was working with a sports agent in the Richmond (VA) area at the time and (my wife and I) still had a teenager at home,” Grubb recalled of Niekro’s initial request. “I tried to do both (coaching and work with the sports agency), but finally I approached Phil and told him ‘Family comes first and I need to stay home right now.’ He was very understanding.”
And – it turns out – persistent because Niekro came calling again before the 1995 Silver Bullets’ season.
This time, Grubb said yes, and for the next two seasons worked with a group of ballplayers he recalled nearly three decades later who were “all ears and eager to learn.”
John Maywood “Johnny” Grubb, Jr. was born on August 4, 1948, in Richmond, VA, to John Grubb, Sr. and Geraldine Grubb. One of three children, and the only son, Grubb gravitated to sports and baseball in particular during his childhood. “There were not a whole lot of neighbors, so I’d pretty much just watch some of the Yankee games on television and then I got a real interest in baseball,” Grubb said.
As was the case with many other boys growing up in the 1950s, Grubb’s favorite player – and Yankee – was Mickey Mantle. After watching the Game of the Week on television, Grubb would head outside and take some cuts, imitating the players he’d watched that afternoon. “I ended up learning how to hit both right- and left-handed just from watching them on television,” he said.
At Meadowbrook High School in Richmond, where his classmates included future professional golfers Lanny and Bobby Wadkins, Grubb excelled at basketball and football as well as baseball. After his sophomore season, he gave up football to focus on baseball, which, he acknowledged, was probably a smart decision. “I might have gotten hurt, as small as I was then,” Grubb said.
After graduation, he enrolled at Manatee Junior College – now State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota – in Bradenton, where he played two seasons under coach Bob Wynn. After his sophomore year, Grubb was drafted for the first of four times in a two-year span. In 1969, the Boston Red Sox drafted him in the third round of the amateur draft, but Grubb chose to remain at Manatee. Later that year, the Cincinnati Reds selected him in the first round with the 14th overall pick of the amateur draft’s secondary phase.
Rather than sign with the Reds, Grubb instead transferred to Florida State University in Tallahassee and starred on the 1970 squad that compiled a 49-9 record and finished as runner-up to the University of Southern California for the NCAA championship. Grubb led FSU in hitting with a .303 regular-season average. In the College World Series, he again led the Seminoles in hitting and was named to the All-Series team. Later he was named an honorable mention All-American.
The Atlanta Braves drafted Grubb in the third round of the 1970 amateur draft (secondary phase), but he opted not to sign. On January 13, 1971, the San Diego Padres selected him with the 24th pick of the first round in the secondary phase. With only two quarters remaining at FSU, he weighed his options and then signed with the Padres.
“I took pride in being a good outfielder, and thought I had a better-than-average arm,” Grubb said. “And though I was not a real burner as a baserunner, I felt like I had better-than-average speed. So I felt like I had the four tools that they wanted. Especially in the National League, they want you to be able to field, run, hit, and have a good arm. And, of course, like they always said, if you can hit, they’ll find a place to play you somewhere.”
Grubb’s professional career began in 1971 with the Class A Lodi Padres of the California League. The Padres promoted him the next season to the Double-A Alexandria (LA) Aces of the Texas League. Hall of Famer Duke Snider managed the Aces, and the team’s pitching coach was former Dodgers – and Tigers – left-hander Johnny Podres.
By and large, Grubb spent most of his time in the outfield in the minors but he dabbled, at the club’s request, at third base: “They were trying to get me to learn how to play a little bit of third. So I wasn’t sure if they were going to have me at third or the outfield. Then they had a guy that they signed as a bonus player, Dave Roberts. They played him at third, and then they ended up moving me back to the outfield, which was fine with me. I liked the outfield.”
Grubb’s fast track to the major leagues continued at the end of the 1972 season, when the Padres promoted the 24-year-old outfielder to the big club in September. On September 10, 1972, he made his major-league debut as the starting center fielder in a doubleheader against the Atlanta Braves. Grubb promptly collected his first major-league hit, a seventh-inning single to right off Ron Reed. In the nightcap, Grubb got two more hits and his first major-league –RBI. In seven games, Grubb batted .333 with a double and triple.
He spent the offseason playing for Obregón in the Mexican League to get more playing time and experience at the professional level. Grubb said the talent in the Mexican League was similar to that of Double-A or Triple-A clubs in the United States. His experience in Mexico apparently provided Grubb with the edge the Padres were looking for; he broke camp with the team in 1973 and his 16-year big league career was in second gear – and he’d never have to put it in reverse by returning to the minors.
In his first full major-league season, Grubb appeared in 113 games for a new manager, Don Zimmer, and played almost exclusively in center field, hitting .311 with eight home runs and 37 RBIs. He finished sixth in the National League Rookie of the Year Award voting, with the Giants’ Gary Matthews winning the award running away. (Grubb did, in fact, play some third base during his rookie season. He played four innings over two games at third but never had to make a play.)
Grubb saw even more playing time in 1974 – and he capitalized on it. Of all Padres who qualified for the National League batting title, he led in several offensive categories, including a .286 batting average, a .355 on-base percentage and a .758 on-base plus slugging (OPS) percentage. That year New York Mets manager Yogi Berra selected Grubb as an All-Star reserve — and the Padres’ only representative – for the game in Pittsburgh. In his only at-bat in the All-Star Game, Grubb popped out to shortstop on a pitch from Oakland hurler (and eventual Hall of Famer) Catfish Hunter in the seventh inning.
“I was real happy to be on an All-Star team,” Grubb said. “It was a little unusual that it was only my second year in the league. But I was just happy to be there.”
Grubb played two more seasons in San Diego, hitting .269 and .284, respectively. After the 1976 season, he was traded with catcher Fred Kendall and infielder Hector Torres to the Cleveland Indians for outfielder George Hendrick. Grubb said he was looking forward to playing for Indians manager Frank Robinson, who had tapped him as an everyday player in 1977. But a hand injury just 34 games into the season made Grubb’s first year in Cleveland one to forget.
“I did it on a checked swing,” he said. “I tried a checked swing on one of Gaylord [Perry]’s nasty pitches. Some people call it a spitter, but it could have been a forkball, I don’t know. But I tried to check my swing and I guess the knob of the bat came across my hamate bone. And it’s a strange way to do it, but it broke it off and I ended up having to go in” for surgery.
- Next Time: The latter part of Grubb’s MLB playing career
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