Over the weekend Jerry Grote, the catcher that shepherded a young New York pitching staff to World Series appearances in 1969 and 1973 died in Texas at the age of 81. Grote came to New York in 1966, being dealt to the Mets from the Houston Colt .45s (today known as the Astros) after the 1965 MLB season. Houston had too many catchers, and the Colt .45s cleared out the surplus by sending Grote to the Mets in exchange for pitcher Tom Parsons and cash. It was easily one of the best trades in the early history of the franchise.
Grote spent most of 10 seasons with the Mets, earning two All-Star appearances while generating respect around the league as one of the game’s top defensive catchers. Said Johnny Bench, the best all-around catcher of his era: “If [Grote] was on the Reds, I would be playing third base.” Mets legend Tom Seaver was also caught by Bench and fellow Hall of Famer Carlton Fisk, but insisted that Grote was the catcher he loved to throw to most. And Lou Brock, one of the greatest base stealers of all time, said Grote was the toughest catcher in the league to run on.
He was gruff, tolerated no nonsense and was a legendary competitor. If you watch old Mets highlight reels, you’ll often see Grote rolling the baseball to the right of the pitcher’s mound after an inning ending strikeout at Shea Stadium. Grote did that to force the visiting team’s pitcher to walk a few extra steps to pick up the ball to start the next inning. In the infrequent instances when an opposing batter would strike out in recreational softball to end an inning, I always aped his signature move.
Grote’s stint in New York ended near the end of the disastrous 1977 Mets season when he was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Tommy Lasorda was looking for some defensive insurance behind the plate as the team was headed to the postseason, and he knew that Grote would command the respect of his veteran pitching staff. He stuck around with the Dodgers through 1978, appearing in the postseason twice with the team. He retired, and then returned with the Kansas City Royals in 1981. On June 3rd, Grote went 3-4 with a grand slam, double and stolen base. He drove in seven runs that day, a Kansas City franchise record. He was released in September and caught on with the Dodgers again for the remainder of the season before retiring for good.
Grote never caught a no-hitter with the Mets, even though he got close with Seaver in his “imperfect game” in 1969. But the game I really wish he could have caught would have been a no-hitter with Nolan Ryan before the Mets traded him to the California Angels after the 1971 season. Now that’s a game that Grote would have killed to call.
Here’s how he described Ryan’s fastball.
Grote briefly crossed over in 1977 with former Mets pitcher Pat Zachry, who died this weekend at the age of 71, but they inhabited two distinct eras of Mets baseball. While Grote was on his way out that season, Zachry had just arrived, one of four players New York received in exchange for Seaver in the infamous trade with the Cincinnati Reds that heralded an epoch of misery in Queens.
Not that it was Zachry’s fault. He broke in with the Reds in 1976 when the Big Red Machine was at high tide, winning 14 games for a team that went undefeated in the postseason. Zachry won two games in the playoffs, including Game Three of the World Series against the New York Yankees in Yankee Stadium. After the season, he shared the National League Rookie of the Year Award with pitcher Butch Metzger of the San Diego Padres. It’s hard to think of a better start to a major league career.
Imagine what it must have been like to step on the mound and pitch to Bench, with Pete Rose, Tony Perez, Joe Morgan, Dave Concepcion, George Foster and Ken Griffey surrounding you on the diamond. How much better could it get for a pitcher?
That all changed on June 15, 1977, a day known to Mets fans as the Midnight Massacre. As the only pitcher included in the deal, the spotlight naturally fell on Zachry, and once the Mets sent Jerry Koosman packing after the 1978 season, he spent most of his time with the team near the top of the rotation along with Craig Swan. Needless to say, Zachry wasn’t Tom Seaver, but that was asking a little much. He was 41-46 in six season with the Mets, but always acquitted himself well during a period when few players on the team could make that claim. He made his only All-Star appearance in 1978 when he was 10-3 at the break, but saw his season end prematurely on July 24th when he broke his foot in a dugout mishap after being relived in a game against the Reds. It was that night where he yielded a hit to former teammate Rose that allowed him to tie the National League hitting streak record of 37 games then held by Tommy Holmes.
Zachry punched his ticket out of Queens after the 1983 season, and he enjoyed some success as a reliever with the Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies before being released by Philidelphia in the midst of the 1985 season. But no matter what else he did with his career, his time in the majors would always be defined by the deal that involved Seaver. For some reason, I remember one Summer night when he carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning at Shea Stadium. It got broken up, like so many other potential no-hitters with the Mets, but I never felt like he didn’t give it his all.
Watching Jerry Grote roll the ball to the opposite side of the mound, and knowing why he was doing it, is one of the great memories of my childhood. RIP #15.