Interview: Ross Grimsley on Pitching to Hank Aaron

Interview: Ross Grimsley on Pitching to Hank Aaron

By Scott Bolohan

On January 22, 2021, baseball lost one of the true giants of the game when Hank Aaron died. He was one of a handful of players who transcended the game as a true icon. The number 755 will forever hold a magical significance with baseball fans.

We wanted to find a way to honor the life and legacy of Hammerin’ Hank, and after seeing this tweet, we reached out to former Reds, Orioles, Expos, and Indians pitcher Ross Grimsley to chat about what it was like to actually pitch to Hank Aaron. For his part, Aaron slashed .423/.529/.577 over 34 plate appearances against Grimsley from 1971-1975. Not too shabby.

We talked with Grimsley about what made Aaron so great, how Aaron tipped him off on how to pitch to him, as well as some bonus stories about Willie Mays and Barry Bonds.

Hank Aaron made his debut when you were four years old, so pretty much your whole time growing up, he was in the majors. What’s it like when someone like that steps into the box against you?

My dad played 16 years and he played a month and a half of the White Sox, he got the pitch against Ted Williams, and he told that story that he made him hit the ball the other way for a double. So that was a big thing. And to make him hit the ball the other way, to hell he got a double, that’s not important! [Laughs] But I was always around baseball, and my big goal growing up, I just wanted to be a minor league player. Playing in the major leagues, you had guys like Aaron, Mays, Killebrew, all these guys that I collected baseball cards of as a kid, and I got to pitch to these guys. I worked for the Giants for 16 years and all those guys would come to spring training and have a big to-do there and I had a chance to talk to him. It was pretty neat. I worked for a year with the Atlanta Braves in I think ’89, and Aaron was the farm director at the time. I got to talk to him and what have you.

You don’t realize what you were doing until several years later. Then you can say, “I actually pitched to the guys that I watched.” My favorite player was Willie McCovey and I got to pitch to him. You have the baseball cards and little games we played with them, then actually to be in the game—a real baseball game against those guys—what a thrill afterward.

At the time, I was so ready to pitch and perform. I knew who I was pitching to, but it wasn’t until later I went, “Jiminy Christmas, I was pitching to all these guys, holy cow. It was a dream come true.” I think it was probably more of a thrill for my father and my family than it was for me when it was happening. I was really focused on what to do, the stuff that I had been taught over childhood and professional ball, but it was quite something.

The very first time you faced him was on June 19, 1971. You were 21 years old. You got him to ground to second base. Do you remember that at all?

I’ll tell you a story about this. You’d be around the batting cage before those guys would hit. I listened to Roberto Clemente, and they’d asked him, ‘How you feel today, Roberto?’  ‘My back hurts, my arm hurts, I got a headache.’ And he’d go out and go 3-for-4, throw a guy out at the plate, hit a home run and drive in two or three runs. He always has ‘it.’ I ain’t falling for that.

But I heard Aaron make a comment. He said, “Fastballs middle-in and in are mine. Middle-away and away are yours.” So I’m going, okay. He was 11-for-26 off of me. He hit a home run and a double and all the rest were singles. And I remembered what he said, and I never threw him a ball inside again. He got base hits up the middle and to the right of second base, and I’ll take that, I’ll give that to him. Or I just pitched around him, depending on the situation. But I always remembered that, and I said, ‘I’ll give up a base hit but not a home run or an extra-base hit.’ I mean, he had some quick, quick wrists, even when he was older.

Like you said, he only hit the one home run, number 672.

Let me tell you the story. Now, Aaron didn’t know anybody’s name that he that he hit against. He knew about the home run he hit. My name was 672. [Laughs] He knew who we were. But that was something, ‘You’re 672, you’re 721, you’re 750.’ He did that! We laughed about it.

What did you think when he broke that record?

He was in Cincinnati when he hit the [714th] home run off of [Jack] Bellingham, who was my roommate at the time. Everybody was watching. It was pretty exciting to see that he was going for a record that you never thought would ever be broken. You didn’t want to leave and go the bathroom or go get a Coke. It was, ‘He’s coming up, we’re gonna watch this.’ It was history in the making. And you love to be a part of it. That’s really, really special.

What was the reputation of Hank around baseball?

He didn’t say a whole lot. He was a quiet guy.  He treated everybody with respect, which is what I remember. You never heard anything bad. What little I was around him, you never heard him swear, he was very cordial, very nice. Even if he didn’t know you, he would talk to you. I don’t know if he was buttering you up to hit off of you. [Laughs] It’s a very good possibility. He always seemed to be an upbeat guy. And I know toward the end [of the home run chase] with all the pressure on him, I can’t remember him showing that. I’m pretty sure it was probably always on his mind, especially the death threats he got. I don’t remember it ever mentioned at the time. It had to weigh heavy on him. As far as I knew, being an opponent, he was a good guy. He really was.

Do you think he was the best hitter you ever faced?

He was one of the better hitters, yeah. He hit home runs off right-handers and left-handers. He had quick hands. Like I said, the ball middle-in, he would jump all over it. In his prime he would probably be up there with Willie Mays. I caught these guys at the end of their careers.

I know this is about Aaron, but I got to tell this story. Mays was with the Mets and I had faced him in ’71, ’72, and in ’73 we were facing them. I had pitched against him and I sent the bat boy over to get his autograph. So he comes back and he’s got this ball and it’s a scribble. You can’t even read it. I’m going, ‘Who in the hell is this?’ So I told the bat boy, “Can you go back over and tell him, it’s for me? I pitched against him, can he write it so people can read it?” And he comes back. Now, I don’t know if he signed it, but I can read it, he wrote it for me very nicely, and I struck him out three times. [Laughs] Those guys were just legends. You had to sit back and go, ‘Holy cow.’ These are guys that I emulated growing up, Willie Mays with a basket catch, McCovey with the way swung the bat. But it was very special. Very special. It gives you chills now to even think about it.

When I was with the Reds, Pete Rose’s first family and my wife and son, we were very close. We spent a lot of time with him during the winter, and obviously, during the summer when we played. So I got to know, Pete real well, and, obviously, Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan and those guys. You look back and go, ‘I must have played with, twelve or more Hall of Famers and probably against a lot more.’ So you just kind of go, ‘Wow, what a dream to be around those guys.’ I never dreamed of playing in the big leagues. That was a thing for Mays, Aaron, those big-name guys. Those were the big leaguers and then to sit back and go, I was a big leaguer?

You don’t sound jaded by it at all.

Oh gosh, yeah. I played for almost 12 years. And, had some good years and that’s not so good years. But every day being around Andre Dawson, Gary Carter, in Baltimore with Brooks Robinson, Jim Palmer. One of the big mentors I had was Mike Cuellar. Mike Flanagan was a good friend, Mike Boddicker. I mean, I can go on and on at the guys and you go, ‘What a dream to be able to do that.’ And I was very blessed, especially to play as long as I did and not get hurt until the very last year I sprained my elbow. But at that point, it was about over anyway. [Laughs]

In San Francisco, I threw batting practice in spring training to Barry Bonds in big league camp. He wanted something on it, and obviously being about 40-45 feet, I let it go. The other pitcher that threw it to him, the first thing he told me was, ‘Don’t hit them.’ I go, ‘If I hit him, it ain’t gonna hurt him.’ I didn’t realize why, but he’ll flap his bill all the time and then I’d just bark back at him. But if you’re around a lot of people, he was gonna show his butt. But when he’s by himself, he was a decent guy. Might be the best hitter ever.

I never got to see Aaron play, but Bonds to me was on a different planet than everyone else.

He would do things just in batting practice—and in a game too—that most people can’t do. He would take a ball off the plate, about that much. And then you throw about that much off and he would take it again. You couldn’t you pitch him inside off the plate. He’d hit the ball fair. That was just phenomenal. He might have been the best hitter that I had ever seen.

Hey, you pitched to him too.

[Laughs] Yeah, I’ll count it. I had a lot of fun doing it. Even putting up with his bullshit. [Laughs]

You pitched to the top two home run hitters of all time.

Yeah! He was just amazing. It was just really, really impressive. Really impressive.

When you think about Bonds, he obviously had a great career. He had a couple of huge years. But for Hank, it was that consistency, 20 years of greatness. That’s really what stands out to me about Hank. You faced him at the end of his career and he still hit .423 against you.

Hey, eleven hits, nine of them were singles. Come on! [Laughs] I did strike him out once. It was probably looking. [Laughs]

So if he’s coming up to the plate, how are you pitching to Hank Aaron?

Ever since he made that comment to me, I would not throw him a changeup, just like I wouldn’t throw Mays a change at the end of his career. I made the mistake of doing that once. And I think Aaron might have hit a changeup too, if I’m not mistaken. Their bats weren’t quite as quick. I was an off-speed guy, but in the early ’70s, I threw a lot harder. It was kind of a gift to throw them an off-speed pitch.

What would you say made Hank so great?

I read something that 80% of it is pitch selection, 20% of it is ability. But he had such strong, strong wrists, strong hands. Those guys were very, very quick. And, if he got the pitch he was looking for, there’s a good chance he was going to take a pretty good swing at it. The better hitters were going to take advantage of that. And he did.

Yeah, 755 times.

Ross Grimsley pitched for the Cincinnati Reds, Baltimore Orioles, Montreal Expos, and Cleveland Indians. He compiled a 124-99 record with a 3.81 ERA, including being named to the 1978 All-Star Game and becoming the only 20-game winner in Expos history. Hank Aaron slashed .423/.529/.577 over 34 plate appearances against Grimsley. You can follow him on Twitter @rgrimsley2.

Scott Bolohan is the founder of The Twin Bill. He has talked to someone who pitched to Hank Aaron.

Mark Bolohan is an illustrator in the Detroit area. Someday his brother will pay him for his work. He can be reached at markbolohan (at) gmail dot com.