Lee Grissom

Lee Grissom was a pitcher whose best years were with the Cincinnati Reds in the '30s. But he once played the outfield - - - in a row boat. It was during the flood of '36, when Crosley Field lost a one sided contest with the Ohio River.

BB: Lee, you were born in 1907, is that right?

LG: That's right.

BB: Your brother Marv told me that shortly thereafter the Grissom family moved from Texas to California The year...

LG: Was 1910. I was three years old.

BB. And the family settled in...

LG: Los Molinos.

BB: Did you play baseball in high school?

LG: No, Farm Bureau League.

BB: Did your high school have a team?

LG: Yeah, but I didn't play with 'em. I went through the front door and out the back. Didn't stay very long in high school.

BB: OK you were playing in the Farm Bureau League and some scout way impressed with your pitching.

LG: Gene Valla. He's dead.

BB: Your rookie year in the majors was 1934?

LG: As near as I remember.

BB: Tell me a little about your career before you got to the majors. You said you played in the Farm Bureau League, and I guess that's the same league Marv played in up in Red Bluff?

LG: Yeah.

BB: Did you play any minor league ball?

LG: In '33, I was in Frisco, in the Pacific Coast League.

BB: You were listed on the Cincinnati roster for 1934 That's the first record of you as a major league player

LG: I don't remember all that.

BB: I read you played for Ft. Worth. Did they send you to Son Francisco from Ft. Worth?

LG: I was in Frisco in '33 with Valla (the man who signed him). He sent me to Cincinnati. I went to spring training camp with them in Tampa, Florida, 1934.

BB: You are listed as having an 0-1 record with Cincinnati in 1934, so you weren't with them the whole season. Did they bring you up at the end of the year?

LG: They wanted to keep me but I had to have a full year of minor league experience. So they sent me to Ft. Worth then brought me back to Cincinnati near the end of the season.

BB: Lee, your nickname was Lefty, correct?

LG: Yeah.

BB: You threw left, but batted right according to the Baseball Encyclopedia

LG: Either way.

BB: Well, in the '34 and '37 seasons they have you as a switch hitter, but the rest of your career...

LG: A pinch hitter?

BB: No, a switch hitter.

LG: Oh, yeah.

BB: But the rest of your career you are listed as a right-handed hitter - Maybe you can explain why occasionally we will see a pitcher who will do that. For instance, Sandy Koufax threw left but batted right

LG: The only thing I did was throw left-handed- Everything else was right-handed.

BB: You smoke a cigarette with your left hand

LG: I had a stroke on this side, and I don't have much here (gesturing to the right side of his body). I can only see out of one eye.

BB: Well, then you can still pitch, because you still have your good left arm

LG: That's all I got.

BB: Let's get back to the question of why some pitchers throw from one side but bat from the other

LG: Well, that's human nature. It comes from yourself.

BB: Whatever makes you comfortable.

LG: Yeah.

BB: But when you're standing in there right-hander you're exposing your pitching arm. It might get hit by a pitch.

LG: Pitchers don't get hit much.

BB: That '34 team, the first Reds' team you played for, finished in last place, but they had some pretty good players They had Sunny Jim Bottomley at first. Remember Bottomley?

LG: Yeah. Let me tell you a story about Sunny. He walked up to me when I first started out and said, "You look awkward when you try to field a bunt." I said, "Don't worry about me; you just catch it." So they bunted on me, and I fielded it and threw to first. The ball and Bottomley's glove went up into the second deck.

BB: In other words you said "I'll show you if I'm awkward or not." The batter bunted, you fielded the ball and threw to first base with so much on the ball that you knocked the glove right off of Bottomley's hand and the ball and all went right up...

LG:(Laughing)... into the second deck.

BB. He never criticized you after that

LG: No. (More laughter).

BB: One guy I want to get around to was your catcher, Ernie Lombardi. He's a Hall of Fame catcher a great hitter. What do you remember about Ernie Lombardi? What kind of person was he?

LG: Oh, he was a nice person. And he threw so hard that when I was on the mound I had to duck to keep from getting hit.

BB You mean when somebody tried to steal second he threw so hard right through the pitcher's mound that you had to get out of the way or you would have gotten drilled.

LG: Yup.

BB: Nobody stole many bases on him

LG: Not too many.

BB: Of course that's a big part of the pitcher's responsibility, too, isn't it-to hold runners on first base?

LG: Oh, yeah.

BB: Were you pretty good at holding runners on base?

LG: Yeah.

BB: 1937 was your best year. You were 12-17, your ERA was 3.26, you struck out 149 batters and you led the National League with five shutouts.

LG: Yeah, and I was in the All Star Game. I relieved Dizzy Dean. He got a line drive on his big toe and broke it.

BB: That would be the famous play where Earl Averill broke Dean's big toe, right?

LG: Yup, I only pitched to one or two guys. Or one or two innings. I forget. (It was one inning.)

BB: In 1940 you went over to the American League and played with the Yankees for part of a season then they traded you to Brooklyn. Do you remember the circumstances of your leaving Cincinnati where you played most of your career?

LG: I had a bad arm.

BB Did the Yankees know that when they traded for you?

LG: I dunno. They traded me for another left-hander. He was pushed around, too.

BB: After finishing the season with the Dodgers in '40 you were back with them in '47. But then they traded you to the Phillies.

LG: Yeah, but I didn't report to the Phillies. I went in the service for three-and-a-half years. (Grissom got confused here. He pitched 29 games for Philadelphia in 1941 and was scheduled to report to their spring camp in '42 except that Uncle Sam had a different camp for him to report to. He didn't know it then, but he had pitched his last game.)

BB: Which branch of the service were you in?

LG: Infantry. And then I was in the Army Air Corps. Headquarters, I asked 'em, 'What the hell am I going to do here?'

BB: Did they let you play baseball in the Army?

LG: Yeah. I made more money in the Army than I did at Cincinnati.

BB: How did that happen?

LG: Well, I pitched two or three times in Colorado Springs when I was in the Army, 75 miles from Denver where I was stationed. There was a guy up there who had a bar. And he had a baseball team. He said, "I'll give you a hundred dollars a game."

BB: That was a semi-pro team.

LG: Yeah. We won the pennant that year for him.

BB: After you got out of the Army, did you try to get back into baseball?

LG: Nope. Hell, I was 38 when the war ended.

BB: What did you do? Play in the Pacific Coast League, or semi-pro hall? Did you do any coaching or managing? Any scouting?

LG: No, no.

BB: What did you decide to do with the rest of your life?

LG: I stayed with my dad for a long time on the farm.

BB: You ran the farm?

LG: He ran the farm. I did all the work.

BB: Marv was in baseball by tins time Did you take any part in his career? Did you teach him some of the things you knew?

LG: No.

BB: Ok. Let's go back, Lee, to 1938. A lot of fans remember that as the year Johny Vander Meer of your Cincinnati team pitched two consecutive no-hitters

LG: Two no-hitters, and they caught line drives off the fence for him.

BB He got a lot of support from his teammates

LG: Yes, he did.

BB: I remember Crosley Field, where the Reds used to play. Instead of a warning track they had an embankment that told the outfielders they were approaching the fence.

LG: See that picture hanging behind you.

BB. (Getting up to look al the photo). It's a picture of Crosley Field and it's flooded! And there you are with (reading the caption) Gene Scott, the groundskeeper, and you're rowing around in a boat! I'll bet the game got rained out that day!

LG: (Laughing heartily) Yeah!

BB: I see that outfield embankment in this picture. And you said that Vander Meer's two no-hitters were saved by outfielders catching a lot of line drives against the fence.

LG: Oh yeah! They hit him hard, but the outfielders caught the balls. (The second no-hitter was actually at Ebbets Field-but was the first night game played there.)

BB: Those were night games too weren't they? And the lights weren't very good, it was the beginning of night baseball. Some people say that helped Vander Meer Do you remember anything else about those two no-hitters?

LG: No.

BB: Lee, did you have a favorite manager all those years, one you liked to play for more than the others?

LG: No, they're all the same.

BB: Outside of the All Star one, what other experiences do you especially remember?

LG: Well, there was one thing. I stayed in a Cincinnati hotel that year (1937) down on 3rd Street, It was down the street from the ballpark. They had that flood that put Crosley Field under water, Goin' down to the ballpark I saw a big old milk cow stickin' her head out the window. Second story window. Holstein cow. I told 'em about it. They came down there with a raft, pulled that raft right up to the window. She came right out onto that raft. Nobody knew how to milk her. I knew how to milk her.

BB: She probably hadn't been milked for several days

LG: They went into the hotel and got a bucket and I milked that cow. Filled the bucket up. They didn't know how to milk a cow!

BB: So the California farm boy, showed them how. Any other memories?

LG. Na, that's about all I know.

BB: So, after you left baseball you went back to farming?

LG: Yeah.

BB: And that was where, in Los Molinos?

LG: Yeah, and when I left that I went to Frisco, and that's when I signed up for baseball.

BB. No, Lee, I mean after your baseball career was over

LG: Oh, I went to Red Bluff. As far as I can remember I wasn't doing anything.

(At this point, Lee's wife, Ruth, breaks in, trying to serve as interpreter.)

RG: When were you building fences?

LG: Where?

RG: When?

BB: She says you built fences during part of your working life.

LG: Texas?

BB: No, fences. Were you a fence contractor? Did you build fences?

LG: Where did you get that shit?

BB: Mrs. Grissom just said that you built fences. But that didn't amount to much?

LG: Na.

BB: Well, Lee, it's been a nice visit, and I appreciate the time you gave me. And Mrs. Grissom, thank you for being part of this conversation