Mark Grace left work early recently for an appointment he had awaited his entire life. He was to be fitted with a World Series ring.
“I just hope the good Lord doesn’t call me before I get the actual ring,” Grace said. “No kidding. I’ve thought about that. I just don’t want anything to happen before I get that ring.”
His chances are good. They are certainly better than at this time last spring, when he was hoping it would click for the Arizona Diamondbacks. The chances are light-years better than they were in any of his 13 seasons with the Cubs.
Grace earned his late-career success. He is entering his 15th big-league season and still respects baseball as much as the father who introduced him to it.
This spring training, he said, has been about the same as usual. Yet there are two fundamental differences. He is finally on the team everyone else is chasing, which is good. But he has no assurances of a future as a player if his performance slips, which is not so good.
Grace would love to play forever, but he would be satisfied to last long enough for his 16-month-old son to have memories of him playing.
“I hope I can play long enough that he can watch me, appreciate me, understand that his pops is out there,” Grace said.
One way or another, Jackson Grace is going to spend his share of time at ballparks. It long has been expected that Grace would remain associated with baseball as a broadcaster when his playing career was over, most likely in a role with the Cubs.
But as Grace gets older, and a little closer to the end, he isn’t sure he’ll want to take off his uniform. For the first time he’s talking about a desire to become a manager.
“You guys know I’m full of [it], so I can be a broadcaster,” Grace said. “I’ve done it before and it would be easy. But I’d like to manage someday–coach or manage. You never know where that opportunity would take you. It could take you to the minor leagues, the big leagues. You don’t know.”
From Don Zimmer’s hunches to Jim Riggleman’s charts, Grace figures he has about seen it all from the eight managers for whom he has played. He has studied the greatness of Ryne Sandberg, Andre Dawson, Sammy Sosa and Randy Johnson.
“I’ve also hung around long enough to talk many, many times to guys like Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa and Bob Brenly,” Grace said. “It’s fun listening to different philosophies on managing. Jimmy Leyland’s another guy I talked to. You’d think I’d be a stinking genius, but I still have a lot to learn.”
Including three cherished trips to the playoffs, Grace has played 2,077 games in his career. The one for which he will be remembered is Game 7 of the 2001 World Series. His leadoff single against Mariano Rivera started the winning rally that denied the New York Yankees a fourth consecutive championship.
Brenly, the Diamondbacks’ manager, said Arizona might not have even made the playoffs if Grace had not been a consummate pro. He worried how Grace might react when he pinch-hit for him against St. Louis left-hander Steve Kline early in the season. No manager ever had called Grace back to the dugout with a game on the line. But when Brenly approached Grace to explain why he wanted Greg Colbrunn to face Kline, Grace stuck a finger in his face and cut him off.
“`Don’t ever apologize for anything,”‘ Grace told Brenly. “If I was managing, I would have done the same thing.”
Brenly said he considers that a turning point that helped produce a championship.
“If Grace stomps to the clubhouse, fires his battling helmet, I’m probably going to lose every veteran on the team,” Brenly said. “But that’s the way Grace is. He’s a professional. He puts the team in front of himself. That set a tone for our team.”
Grace said tantrums never have been an option for him.
“I told [Brenly] I wasn’t going to slam my bat and pout like a 6th-grader,” he said. “My father would have killed me if he found out I acted like that. I still fear my father.”
Brenly figures to test Grace’s unselfishness this season by resting him more often in favor of Erubiel Durazo.
Brenly twice used the 27-year-old first baseman as a cleanup hitter in the World Series.
Durazo had been one of baseball’s hottest hitters this spring, batting .537 with six homers in 41 at-bats before breaking a bone in his right hand Wednesday night. He’s expected to be out until May.
“Whoever is playing, first is in good shape,” Grace said. “That won’t be a weakness.”
With Durazo available, the Diamondbacks aren’t expected to pick up Grace’s option next season.
He has set a high standard with a career .307 average and knows scouts will watch closely for signs of slippage.
“If I play like I did last year, we’ll keep playing,” Grace said. “But I’m smart enough to know I’m 38 and in the last year of my contract. Thirty-eight-year-old first basemen don’t get a lot of free-agent love. I remember when a 36-year-old free-agent first baseman didn’t get a lot of free-agent love.”
If Grace hits the free-agent market next winter, at least he’ll come with accessories. He’s not one of those guys who will stick a World Series ring into a safety-deposit box.
“Hell, yeah, it’s going on my finger,” Grace said. “I will wear it proudly.”
