Home Sweet Home
It was a city so warm and inviting, a people so welcoming and open that led Grilli, his wife, Danielle, and their children to make Pittsburgh their home.
“When you say you’re from Pittsburgh, there’s a pride there that people know – it’s just a good feeling city, a down-to-Earth kind of place with salt of the earth kind of people,” he said. “It’s not hard to fit in there. Because I love beer and pizza, too. I enjoy watching sports and doing all of the same things that Yinzers, I guess I should say, like to do. I like to get involved, my kid loves to go to all of the fresh market farms and all of that,” he said with a voice beaming with pride. “I think when you go from city to city, you realize what feels right. I spent a few off-days flying home to Pittsburgh recently and there’s just a sense of peace there that I haven’t found anywhere else –it’s good for my family, it’s good for me and it just feels like home.”
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When he’s not hanging out in the Burgh, these days, Grilli is still working late innings in baseball, and since June when he was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays from the Atlanta Braves, still throwing to Martin. The two veteran players, he says, talk occasionally about their time in Pittsburgh together (Martin joined the Jays in 2015 as a free agent) – and now include former Pittsburgh Pirates SP Francisco Liriano, who was on that 2013 team, and JA Happ, who played with the Pirates in 2015, in the conversations.
“We remember Pittsburgh, we’ve related some of our experiences from being there, we’ve chatted a little bit about it. That’s the bond we have now – and we’re trying to take the same thing and maybe bring it here,” he said of the Blue Jay’s push to rise from post season obscurity, which they started in a big way by winning the AL East last season.
The Long Road
His road to Toronto was a bumpy one, paved with disappointment.
First came his unceremonious trade by the Pittsburgh Pirates to the Anaheim Angels in June 2014.
“It was a painful one, going to Anaheim,” he said, mincing no words. “I didn’t see the trade coming. It was whatever it was – I didn’t like it – but I didn’t have to like it, it happened.” While too long in the tooth in baseball terms not to acknowledge the business side of baseball, he expressed frustration with the way the Pirates managed his role, and that of other closers in their system. “I am appreciative of the opportunity I got as a Pirate and to get on that mountaintop and be a closer,” he said. “But you can see now, with (closer 2014-midway 2016 Mark) Melancon traded, and how, I, myself pushed (closer 2010-2012 Joel) Hanrahan out of the way, there’s a formula unfortunately that the Pirates use and it always seems to be economic more than it is about keeping pieces.”
[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”Jason Grilli” link=”” color=”#000000″ class=”” size=””]I know Russ had a big part in speaking up about getting me over here to Toronto[/perfectpullquote]But, he said, as he’s done many times in his career, he picked himself up, dusted off his backside and went to his next team. “I’ve been everywhere and adapt to whatever I’m asked to do. I do it,” he said. “So when I went to Anaheim I wanted to prove to [The Pirates] that they made a mistake and that was all I could do. And I did.”
At the end of that season he signed a two-year deal with the Atlanta Braves, presumably to be the set-up man for closer Craig Kimbrel. But he was traded to the Padres the day before the 2015 season began and Grilli found himself once again on the top of that mountain as the closer. “Sometimes we wonder if we think we’re better than we are,” he said, “But that Atlanta saw enough in me as a closer to trade Kimbrell made me wonder if sometimes we’re justified thinking that…whatever direction [Atlanta] was going with that – well, it was a surprise to me.”
Next came a ruptured left Achilles tendon midway through his 2015 season. While it was definitely a season-ending injury, many pondered if Grilli, who was 38 at the time, had thrown his last pitch in major league baseball.
“I just didn’t want to go out like that,” he said of the injury. “Baseball has tried to get rid of me many a time over but I’m just not done with this thing yet.”
He went through intense rehab to get in shape and ready to start the season with his team, which had by that time shifted into full rebuild mode. “I told them, if you need to get rid of me, I see the direction you’re going, let me go somewhere else and see if I can help a team win. I’m running out of time and that’s my ultimate goal,” he said.
And they did. To the Blue Jays. The team he cheered for as a kid growing up in Syracuse, New York. And the team his dad, pitcher Steve Grilli, played for in 1978 and 1979.
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It’s an irony that isn’t lost on him. “It’s just the way baseball is,” he said.
He gives credit to a member of his black and gold “famalee” for getting him to the Blue Jays.
“I know Russ had a big part in speaking up about getting me over here to Toronto because at the time they were having some bullpen troubles,” he said. “I was traded early. And while I always try to put myself in a good position, to be thought of that way, as someone who can help…well, I’ve just been trying to get here a long time.”
It didn’t take him long to pick right back up on traditions of Pirates teams past, either. His celebrations with Martin always reflected his great love of winning and affection for the guy who helped direct him along the way. “I had an early save opportunity in a game when I first came over here. When I saved it, I did my typical fist pump reaction and I was so excited to be with Russ and to just get him in that head lock and punch him in the chest protector again,” he said laughing. “He was yellin’ ‘Give it to me Grill!’ – he got caught up in the moment too – I kissed him and I said, ‘Dude thank you for getting me over here I know you had a lot to do with it’.”
Joy Frank-Collins is chief features writer at Pirates Breakdown
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