Curtis Granderson visits Cape Girardeau at “Swing into Spring” event

Former Major League All-Star Curtis Granderson visited Cape Girardeau on Saturday, April 27, to headline the fundraising event, “Swing into Spring” at the Cape Sportsplex.

Granderson has some history with Missouri. His first All-Star Game was at St. Louis. He played in two World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals in 2006 and Kansas City Royals in 2015. He lost both series but played 16 years in the big leagues where he amassed 1,800 hits, 344 home runs, and 937 RBI.

During a Q&A session, kids and fans of all ages had the rare opportunity to ask the first-time Hall of Fame ballot candidate any question. Much of the early questions could have been answered by looking at his baseball card, but he was a good sport about it.

One kid asked about the toughest aspect of being a major leaguer, to which he answered the everyday aspect of getting up and going to work for 180 days a year, something that a lot of people can relate to.

The third question touched on his inspiration to play baseball. Granderson said he started playing baseball because he didn’t want to be left out when his friends were playing. 

Which led to one of the biggest revelations. Granderson's long big league career almost never happened because one year before making his MLB debut with the Detroit Tigers in 2004, he almost quit playing baseball after the 2003 minor league season while playing in Lakeland, Florida, in front of nobody. He said the conversations he had with his friends kept him on the field. He said his father told him that he needed to finish whatever he started. By the time he finished the season, he felt ready to continue playing.

Curtis Granderson leads the crowd in singing "Happy Birthday" to Tameika Morris, Proposal Development Coordinator at Southeast Missouri State University and MVP sponsor of the "Swing into Spring" event on Saturday, April 27, at the SportsPlex.Tony Capobianco ~ tcapobianco@semoball.com

The rest became history.

“That fall I was done playing baseball," Granderson said. "The next fall I played Major League Baseball.”

The biggest takeaway from the Q&A came about the shortage of coaches and officials at the youth levels. In a room that included current high school coaches, he brought up the parents’ role in sports. 

"They don't want to be dealing with these parents out there," Granderson said. "You see these viral videos where all of sudden there's one parent arguing with another parent over a 12U baseball game. What are we arguing about? No one is getting a contract today. No one is getting a college scholarship today. Let's continue to play and have fun.

"On the flip side, as a coach, you can be the most inspirational individual for that athlete," he added. "You're really going to be a really important piece to that child's life. So whether you teach them how to fail, how to succeed, ups and downs, all those things can be impactful."

Curtis Granderson answers a kid's question at the "Swing into Spring" event on Saturday, April 27, at the SportsPlex. Tony Capobianco ~ tcapobianco@semoball.com

He also emphasized to the kids that the coaches really want what is best for the athletes.

When he was asked about an example of being coached up and even yelled at, he talked about being yelled at by Hall of Famer Jim Leyland during his days with the Detroit Tigers.

"Jim Leyland was arguably one of my favorite managers," Granderson said. "One of the good things that he did is he never singled anybody out."

One of the funnier moments came from Granderson telling a funny story about he and his teammates stalking first baseman Lucas Duda to take pictures for an Instagram account they made for him, @wefollowlucasduda. Duda did not like social media at the time, which made it all the more humorous. The last post from the account was on September 11, 2017, and it still has over 90,300 followers.

When asked about the new rules in baseball, Granderson said the best of the recent innovations is balancing the schedule to have every team play each other. Every other rule that doesn't make the game better will eventually "phase itself out."