Jim Greengrass, pictured here on his 1954 Bowman baseball card, died September 9, 2019 at the age of ... [+]
Jim Greengrass often signed autographs with a note to his fans that read, “Many happy innings.” The former Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies outfielder whose big league career spanned 1952-1956, played his final out September 9, 2019. He was 91.
Greengrass, an Addison, New York native, signed with the New York Yankees in 1944 at age 16. Too young to enlist, Greengrass filled the void of the minor league players who were whisked away by Uncle Sam for World War II. The Yankees placed him on their teenage laden Class-D team in Wellsville, New York.
“I was 16 when I signed with the Yankees,” Greengrass said from his Chatsworth, Georgia home during a 2009 interview. “I was the youngest player most everywhere I went, but one of the biggest guys on the team.”
After just one year of minor league life under his belt, Greengrass batted .349 at Wellsville in 1945. While he was ready to take the next step towards playing in Yankee Stadium, the United States government issued him a change of plans.
“I spent almost two years in the service in 1946 and 1947,” he said. “They were getting us ready to go as replacements for the guys that had been over there awhile. Right at the last minute, they canceled that, as they were bringing the 82nd Airborne back home. They shipped me from Camp Kilmer to Richmond.”
With Greengrass spared from combat duty, the door opened for him to get back to his first love, baseball. He was fortunate to keep his skills sharp, as many of his fellow ball-playing veterans lost their touch overseas.
“I played baseball with the camp team,” he said. “We went to the national playoffs in Wichita, Kansas while we were in the service. I was shipped out to Fort McPherson in Georgia. The base commander asked if I would take the base team down to Columbus to the big airbase there for a tournament. … I said, ‘Sure.’ He said, ‘When you come back, I will have your papers ready so you can go home.’ I was not going to argue with that. I was very lucky; I could still run, throw the ball hard, and had good reflexes.”
Greengrass returned in top shape from playing in the Army. By 1949, he was at their Triple-A team in Newark, close enough to smell the freshly cut grass at Yankee Stadium. Just as he thought the major leagues were finally in striking distance, his career made an abrupt turn when management shipped him to Muskegon, Michigan in 1950.
“The Yankees wanted to make a pitcher out of me,” he said. “I was a good 2-3 inning pitcher. I could throw hard, but that was about it. You cannot throw the ball past big league or even Triple-A hitters consistently.”
While Greengrass threw hard, the Yankees couldn’t deny hit bat. He hit .336 and .379 in two seasons at Muskegon, making him a valuable trade chip in their system. After impressing scouts with Beaumont in 1952, the Yankees sent him to the Cincinnati Reds in a trade deadline deal in exchange for veteran pitcher Ewell Blackwell. A chance meeting with Casey Stengel years later finally gave him the real story on how the trade developed.
“I went to an old-timers’ game in Cincinnati and Casey was the visiting manager,” he said. “My son and I went into the clubhouse and Casey was sitting in the locker room. He said, ‘Hey Jimmy, I want to talk to you.’ I had no idea he knew who I was or my name. I never talked to him before. ‘I want to tell you something, I want to tell you why I traded you. We had six great outfielders. I just could not see breaking up proven outfielders to take a guess on you. We wanted a player from Cincinnati and that was Ewell Blackwell. I knew that Blackwell could win me four games at the end of the season.’ … That was Casey’s plan.”
Despite missing a chance to play in the World Series, the trade cleared his path to the major leagues. The Reds installed him into their lineup for the last month of the 1952 season, and he grabbed the opportunity with both hands.
“I came in with a bang, and I got going,” he said. “In 17 games, I hit over .300, had five home runs and over 20 RBIs.”
His time with the Reds was under Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby's watchful eye. Even though Hornsby’s managerial reigns in the 1950s were filled with strife and conflict, Greengrass praised the legendary second baseman for transforming his play.
“He taught me a lot about hitting and how to use the bat,” he said. “He was a big factor from the very first day. Roger would run me up and down that terrace in Crosley Field one hundred times per day. He said the only way you would learn to play is to go out there and do it.
“The only guys that I knew that had trouble playing for him were the guys that didn’t want to hustle. He liked guys that hustled. He never criticized guys for making an error. … The only thing he did not understand was pitchers’ attitudes. They pitched every four days. He thought they should be able to pitch every day.”
Greengrass cherished his five seasons in the majors with the Reds and Phillies. While his bat spoke loudly with 69 career home runs, it was a defensive play that he held most dearly fifty years later.
“Remember Hank Sauer?” he asked. “We called him Abe Lincoln in those days. They [the Cubs] came to Cincinnati to play. He hit a rocket shot to left-center field. I took that ball off that wall out there and fired it to Johnny Temple at second base, which I could do blindfolded by then.
“Temple had it waiting for him. Sauer trotted in there like, ‘Boy I got that double.’ John said, ‘Hey, look what I got Hank.’ He showed him that ball, and he had a fit. Hank said he got that ball out of his pocket. He argued with the umpire when he showed him that ball. It just tore old Hank up; he could not believe it happened."
Greengrass played 16 professional seasons until he hung up his cleats in 1961. During his post-baseball career, he split his time between working at Lockheed and the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office, reaching the Lieutenant rank during his tenure.
In retirement, he thoroughly enjoyed interacting with the baseball fans who sent him mail. He felt it was another honor that came from being a part of such a select group of baseball players.
“It is an ego trip for me,” he said. “I cannot believe anybody remembers me; I played over 50 years ago. I sign them all. It was an honor to play in the major leagues. If you made it, you were at the top of your profession. There were 45 Class-D leagues in the country. There were ballplayers on top of ballplayers.”
