Wayne Granger

Written in blue ink on his minor-league questionnaire was Wayne Granger’s ambition in baseball: “To be a steady starter in [the] major leagues.”1 In a major-league career that spanned nine seasons and seven teams, the right-hander never started a game. But his sinkerball and lanky, 6-foot-2 build helped Granger become the model of durability as a reliever. In his first five years in the majors, he was called upon a remarkable 324 times – including 90, then a major-league single-season record, in 1969. Granger explained it this way: “I think I only weighed about 165, so I didn’t have any muscles to get sore.”2

Wayne Allan Granger was born March 15, 1944, in Springfield, Massachusetts, the second of three children born to Charles and Barbara (née Ellershaw) Granger. Charles was a bus driver and World War II Army veteran, and Barbara worked as a waitress.3 The family lived on Aldrich Avenue in the small town of Huntington, Massachusetts, which in 1940 had a population of 1,340.4

Granger was a multisport athlete at Huntington High School, playing baseball, basketball, and soccer, and compiling a 21-5 record as a pitcher over three seasons. He recorded a perfect seven-inning game his sophomore year with the help of his older brother Erik, the second baseman, whose diving play in the fourth inning saved Granger’s unblemished pitching line.5 Granger struck out 30 batters in a 14-inning game against Westfield Trade High School in 1961. As a senior he captured a Western Massachusetts batting title by posting a .512 average.

Granger studied physical education at Springfield College beginning in September 1962. He appeared in eight games his sophomore year, finishing with a 1-0 record and 2.37 ERA across 27 innings. He allowed 26 hits, struck out 25, and walked nine.6 He was scouted by Lucius “Jeff” Jones, a Massachusetts native and onetime Philadelphia Athletics hopeful whose intentions were to sign Granger to the Milwaukee Braves – until Jones left for the St. Louis Cardinals.

But Granger’s mother would never see him reach the majors. In the late-night hours of September 19, 1964, while driving along Route 20 in Westfield, Massachusetts, she was involved in a near head-on collision with another car.7 Both she and the other driver were hospitalized. Barbara Granger died four days later of severe head injuries at the age of 43.8

Granger signed with the Cardinals a week after his 21st birthday and made his first professional start, at Double-A Tulsa, on April 18, 1965, throwing a three-hit complete game against Amarillo. He spent most of the season at Single-A Raleigh, starting in 20 of his 24 appearances and posting a 2.72 ERA.

In November Granger married Andrea Jean Buynicki, a Westfield nurse he’d first met three months earlier during a 3:00 a.m. trip to the emergency room for abdominal pain.9 They would have two daughters, Michelle and Kelly.

Granger was converted into a reliever in 1966 after breaking his thumb in a rundown play during spring training. Arkansas Travelers manager Vern Rapp used Granger out of the bullpen when he was reactivated.10 “I realized I didn’t throw hard enough to throw it past these major-league hitters, so I started experimenting throwing sidearm and I found I had a pretty good sinker,” Granger explained.11 He went 11-2 with a very tidy 1.80 ERA in 47 games against Texas League hitters.

Returning to Tulsa – which was the Cards’ Triple-A club in 1967 and 1968 – Granger drew on the influence of manager Warren Spahn, who worked with him on his slider and mound concentration. He was called up on May 28, 1968, and would glean even more from observing Bob Gibson and roommate Steve Carlton.

Granger made his first major-league appearance on June 5 at the Astrodome. With the leadoff runner on first, he came on with no outs in the ninth to protect a 3–1 Cardinals lead. He got Houston’s Bob Aspromonte to strike out swinging. Lee Thomas, pinch-hitting for the 0-for-3 Bob Watson, popped out to first. Then Granger fanned second baseman Julio Gotay to record his first major-league save.

Granger pitched in 34 games for the NL pennant-winners, going 4-2, 2.25 with four saves. He appeared once in the 1968 World Series against the Detroit Tigers. In Game Six, Granger hit Al Kaline on the left elbow and grazed Willie Horton’s jersey in the eighth inning. It was a dubious listing in the record books for the rookie; Granger had tied the mark for most hit batsmen in a single inning of the Fall Classic, set by Ed Willett in 1909.12 Granger escaped with a scoreless frame by inducing a double-play ground ball off the bat of Jim Northrup.

Trade rumors were swirling even before the Series had returned to St. Louis. Reds manager Dave Bristol had gotten word in Detroit of a feasible deal that would send center fielder Vada Pinson to the Cardinals for Granger and the speedy Bob Tolan. “What are you waiting for?” Bristol asked Reds general manager Bob Howsam.13 When news of the trade reached Granger, however, he was disappointed. Sure, the Reds had Rose and Bench and Maloney, but the Cardinals were a World Series team, he reasoned.14

Any reservations about leaving St. Louis had faded by the time Granger mixed with his new teammates in spring training. Cincinnati was where he would have the most success as a major-league reliever and where he would stand out as one of the game’s workhorses. Bristol, the Reds’ manager from 1966 to 1969, recalled the in-game conversations with his coaching staff about their ambitions for Granger. “We were hoping that we could get one out in the seventh inning, where he could come in and get two outs in the seventh and finish the game, and a lot of times he did that,” Bristol said nearly six decades later. “Unheard of today.”15

Granger finished the 1969 season with 90 appearances, breaking two records set the previous year: Ted Abernathy’s Reds team record of 78 and the major-league mark of 88 posted by Chicago White Sox knuckleballer Wilbur Wood. As of 2025, there have still been only five men to pitch in 90 or more games in a season. Mike Marshall and Kent Tekulve each did it three times; Salomon Torres and Pedro Feliciano are the others. Granger was named The Sporting News’s National League Fireman of the Year. He completed more than three outs in 50 of his 90 appearances, the most among Reds relievers. “We found another guy from the Braves in a trade, Clay Carroll, and that took a little bit off the load of him some in the ninth inning,” Bristol said.16

In 1970 new Reds manager Sparky Anderson tightened the reins on Granger, turning instead to Carroll and his broader pitch variety for relief outings that exceeded one inning.17 Granger primarily threw one pitch. “I was, oh, probably 60 percent sinkerball—fastball that sank. And I had a slider and not a great one, and a little changeup that I didn’t throw much at all,” he said.18 “My sinker was my big deal because I got a lot of ground balls.”

Anderson’s change in approach slashed Granger’s innings almost by half, yet statistically, 1970 was a better season for the right-hander. His saves total climbed from 27 to a major-league-leading 35.

“I’ll always remember Wayne—he’s the only pitcher I’ve ever fined for something he said on the mound,” Anderson said in 1978.19 “I always had a rule that I didn’t want anyone to talk to me and I wouldn’t talk to them. So, one day Wayne made the remark to me as he handed me the ball, ‘Thanks for having confidence in me.’ He’s the only guy I’ve had to fine for that, and I got him for a hundred dollars.”

With the midseason opening of Riverfront Stadium came a new dilemma for Reds hurlers, but particularly Granger, a low-ball pitcher: ground balls were prone to getting through the infield more quickly on the park’s new artificial turf field. Granger preferred the grass of Crosley Field and its fielding advantages, namely the slowing of grounders and deadening of high choppers.20 However, Granger’s pitching splits show that in 1970, he allowed more hits on grass than on artificial turf.21

Granger was the closer in the Reds’ last game at Crosley Field – on June 24, 1970, trying to save a 5–4 lead over the San Francisco Giants. The final batter in the top of the ninth was Bobby Bonds, a .182 hitter off Granger in 11 at-bats. “If I could get Bobby out, I would have thrown the last pitch at Crosley, which probably had more history than any other stadium,” Granger recalled.22 He threw his slider to Bonds, who hit a weak roller to the mound. “I wasn’t sure I could even throw it to first, I was so excited,” Granger said.23 The final out rested in the hands of a Reds duo linked on this night not by firsts, but by lasts: the park’s last pitcher, Granger, tossed the ball to Lee May, the last to homer.

Granger earned The Sporting News’s top NL fireman honors for a second consecutive year, but his postseason struggles continued. In Game Three of the World Series between the Reds and Orioles, Baltimore pitcher Dave McNally walloped a two-out grand slam on Granger’s 2-2 sinker that didn’t sink. And when Granger fielded the next batter’s comebacker after the damage had been done, he fired to May with an intensity that punctuated his anger.24

His 1971 season began with three straight losing decisions. An unearned run was enough to hand Granger the loss on Opening Day against the Braves. It was a down year for the Reds, who finished 79-83, and although Granger was called upon in 70 games—most in the NL—Anderson found a new closer in Carroll. One positive came on July 9 in Cincinnati. A career .103 batter in 80 plate appearances, Granger hit his only major-league home run off the Mets’ Ray Sadecki.

On December 3 Granger was traded to the Minnesota Twins for left-handed reliever Tom Hall. The Reds front office explained that with lefty Don Gullett’s move to the rotation, adding Hall to the bullpen balanced its roster of pitchers.25

Granger got off to such a good start with the Twins in 1972 that he appeared poised for a comeback season. He retired 19 of the first 22 left-handed batters he faced, sharing relief duties with bullpen mate Dave LaRoche, a lefty who mostly threw a four-seam fastball. “To me, a fastball’s the best pitch in baseball and a sinking fastball is the best fastball,” said LaRoche, Granger’s Twins roommate.26 “I could never get one to sink. We talked about that, and he worked with me a little bit, but my delivery was over the top.”

Granger racked up five saves in his first seven appearances in a Twins uniform and owned a minuscule 0.85 ERA at the end of June. Then came a midseason slide. As a low-ball reliever, he needed to pitch often to stay sharp, but was largely idled during the last two weeks of June by a stretch of complete games from Twins starters.27 (Anderson had tried to use him a minimum of four times a week in Cincinnati.28) Granger gave up nine earned runs in the first half of July, more than double the amount he allowed through the first two and a half months of the season. A lower sidearm delivery was elevating his sinker.29

Soon afterward he fell out of favor with the Twins front office by sounding off about the team being flown to New York the same day as a series opener. Granger had lost an advocate with the recent firing of manager Bill Rigney, who had originally convinced team president Calvin Griffith to acquire the right-hander.30 And although Granger had regained control of his sinker and rebounded from his slump down the stretch, trade talk abounded.31 In October Griffith made a veiled threat to “get rid of some rebels,” deciphered by one Minneapolis sportswriter to mean Granger and LaRoche.32 The Cardinals reacquired Granger in a trade with Minnesota on November 29.

In 1973 he had a 2-4 record and a 4.24 ERA in 33 games for St. Louis. On August 7, Granger was traded to the New York Yankees. “Remember that I got Hank Aaron out,” he quipped as his bags were packed, making reference to their 12-pitch showdown in Atlanta on June 10 that saw Aaron fly out to left field.33

Yankees manager Ralph Houk had a soft spot for onetime aces he thought might rise again from the ashes, but Granger appeared in only seven games in pinstripes.34 Houk resigned at the end of the season. Then, much to Granger’s surprise, he was released in March near the conclusion of 1974 spring training in Fort Lauderdale.

He spent most of that year in the minors trying to work his way back into the White Sox bullpen. The South Siders signed him in April 1974 as a replacement for Bart Johnson, a 6-foot-5 right-hander with aspirations of playing pro basketball who at first had rejected a minor-league assignment.35 Granger pitched only 6 2/3 innings before the Sox optioned him to Iowa, and while he was there, Johnson made his way back onto the big-league roster. Granger was recalled on September 4 and made one more appearance for the White Sox before he was released in October.

Records show that Granger married again on December 28, 1974. He declined to comment when asked about his marital background for this story.

Next it was back to where Granger’s major-league career began: the Houston Astrodome, which might have been the last place a sinkerball pitcher with misgivings about artificial turf fields was expected to end up. “That turf—especially those first, I don’t know, ten or fifteen years of it—boy, that stuff was hard and fast,” said Milt May, the Astros’ primary catcher in 1974 and 1975 and Granger’s frequent batterymate.36 “It was gonna affect him more than most,” May added in a 2025 reminiscence.

Nonetheless, in 1975 Granger rediscovered his groove with the Astros, posting a 2.23 ERA in 25 games at the Astrodome. In all he pitched 74 innings for Houston, his most since Minnesota, and his success sparked a renewed eagerness to come into ballgames.37

“When you’re going to throw that predominantly an amount of one pitch … it has to be a better-than-average pitch, and you have to have better-than-average control of it,” said May, who caught Granger in 34 games. “He was a little extra tough on right-handers.”38 On April 20 in Cincinnati Granger was called upon to get the last out against his old Reds batterymate Johnny Bench. Granger struck him out looking to save a 7–6 lead and snap a seven-game Astros skid. Bench, who caught him in 199 games at Cincinnati, said afterward, “I should have known what Granger was going to throw.”39

While at Houston Granger mixed a palmball and screwball into his arsenal and perfected a deceptive pickoff move to third base. However, he struggled in the second half. He had a 7.24 ERA in the month of August over 13 games. The five saves he recorded that season all came in the first half. The Astros waived him on December 9.

His 27 appearances with Montreal in 1976 marked Granger’s last stop in the majors. The Expos had another sinkerballer reliever, Dale Murray, who said in his scouting report on Granger at the start of the season, “He’s got the good, sidearm sinker right-hand hitters don’t relish.”40 After an inauspicious Expos debut in New York, Granger improved for the remainder of April, but “after that he was very shaky,” said manager Karl Kuehl.41 He was optioned to Denver at the end of June to open a roster spot for Steve Rogers, returning from a broken hand. Granger’s last appearance was on June 25, a scoreless frame against the Pirates at Montreal’s Jarry Park. He finished his major-league career with a 35-35 record, collecting 108 career saves and posting a 3.14 ERA.

Dave Bristol was by then managing the Braves, and Granger, who next signed with Atlanta at age 32, was reunited with his former skipper at the team’s spring training camp in West Palm Beach. One-quarter of the reporting hurlers were categorized by one sportswriter as “has-beens and never-weres,” all part of a Braves initiative aimed at increasing pitching depth.42 Pitching coach Johnny Sain was known as something of a rejuvenation expert when it came to pitchers that were past their prime; and as a coach for the White Sox, Sain had helped Granger with control of his slider. But after a disappointing spring, Granger was released. “I just got old, and my arm got older, and I just couldn’t throw that good sinker anymore,” he said.43

His screwball gave him new confidence against lefties while grinding away in the Mexican League in 1977 and 1978.44 He pitched in a total of 93 games for Córdoba, Mexico City, and Durango, but the wearying schedule and long bus rides weren’t for him.

In 1979, two appearances for Davey Johnson’s Miami Amigos – a member of the short-lived Inter-American League – and another stint at Denver rounded out Granger’s time in pro ball … at least for several years.

In January 1983 Granger was inducted into the Reds Hall of Fame during the annual Ballplayers of Yesterday dinner at Stouffer’s Cincinnati Towers. He was the top vote-getter in fan balloting from a pool of nominees that included Ed Bailey, Joe Beggs, Jack Billingham, Chick Hafey, Joey Jay, Deron Johnson, Jerry Lynch, and Elmer Riddle. Granger worked at sporting goods and shoe stores in Florida and in 1985 played on the Miami Dolphins’ charity softball team. In 1989, at age 45, he pitched for the short-lived Orlando Juice of the 35-and-up Senior Professional Baseball Association.

Today Granger is an avid golfer—a former club champion at Tuscawilla, a course near his home in Winter Springs, Florida. Reading the sports page sometimes evokes memories of his playing days, but baseball isn’t something Granger dwells on. He once said he thought his career was unworthy of the Reds Hall of Fame.45

But nothing quite immortalized the image of Granger on the mound like “The Last Pitch,” a photograph taken by William F. Schildman Jr. that encapsulated the sights of that final Crosley Field at-bat. The sepia-toned print was put on view in Cooperstown and sold for years at McAlpin’s department store in Cincinnati and at the Reds’ 580 Gift Shop. The Cincinnati Enquirer estimated that it hung “in thousands of tristate homes and offices.”46

Last revised: May 7, 2025

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Wayne Granger, Dave Bristol, Dave LaRoche, and Milt May for their memories. This biography was reviewed by Rory Costello and Bill Lamb and fact-checked by Dan Schoenholz.

Photo credit: Wayne Granger, Trading Card Database.

Sources

The author relied on Baseball-Reference.com for statistics and The Sporting News baseball player contract card collection for dates of releases and trades; and obtained Granger’s player file from the library and archives at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. All other sources are shown in the Notes.

Notes

1 Wayne Allan Granger, ballplayer questionnaire, April 29, 1965, William J. Weiss Collection. Society for American Baseball Research, San Diego, US Baseball Questionnaires, 1945–2005, accessed using the Ancestry.com database.

2 Granger, interview with author, March 7, 2025.

3 Ancestry.com, Massachusetts, US, Town and Vital Records, 1620–1988 (database on-line). Provo, Utah: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

4 Massachusetts, Population of Counties by Minor Civil Divisions, 1920 to 1940, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940: Population, Vol. 1, Number of Inhabitants (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1942), 481.

5 “Granger Hurls Perfect Contest for Huntington: Diving Catch by Brother Eric (sic) Helps Against Holyoke Trade,” (Springfield, Massachusetts) Morning Union May 27, 1960: 49.

6 Official Baseball Guide Questionnaire, 1964 season, National Collegiate Athletic Bureau, Springfield College files.

7 “Westfield Woman Victim of Injuries,” (Springfield, Massachusetts) Republican, September 24, 1964: 24.

8 Ancestry.com, Massachusetts, US, Town and Vital Records, 1620–1988.

9 Peggy Johnson, “Cardinal Wives Celebrate, Reminisce at Pennant Party,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 20, 1968; 4D; also, Earl Lawson, “Reds’ May Too Fast for Own Good in Reaching Camp,” The Sporting News, March 15, 1969, 11.

10 Bob Hertzel, “Yes, There Is a Wayne Granger,” Cincinnati Enquirer, July 3, 1969: 27.

11 Granger, quoted in 1970 Cincinnati Reds Media Guide, Tom Seeberg, ed., published February 15, 1970, 18.

12 “Classical Records,” The Sporting News, Oct. 26, 1968, 12.

13 Sid Hartman, Minneapolis Tribune, May 14, 1972: 3C.

14 Granger interview.

15 Bristol, interview with author, March 12, 2025. In Granger’s 90 appearances in 1969 he entered in the seventh inning or earlier and finished the game 11 times. On April 27 he came in to start the eighth and finished what amounted to a 13-inning 10–9 loss to the Padres in game two of a doubleheader.

16 Same as above. Carroll had been traded to the Reds on June 11, 1968.

17 Earl Lawson, “Hitters Just Putty in Hands of Clay, Reds’ Rescue Ace,” The Sporting News, August 1, 1970, 19.

18 Granger interview.

19 Anderson, interview by Si Burick, typewritten transcript, Si Burick Papers, University of Dayton Archives, 1978. Anderson also related the story to Burick in “1973 Title More Meaningful than First Two, Says Sparky,” Dayton Daily News, September 25, 1973; 12, and to Lawson in “Kirby Gets Message: Sparky’s Hook Is Quick,” Cincinnati Post, February 27, 1974: 62.

20 Granger interview.

21 Wayne Granger, 1970 Pitching Splits, Game Conditions, Baseball-Reference.com, https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=grangwa01&year=1970&t=p.

22 Granger interview.

23 Same as above.

24 Bob Hertzel, “In the Record Books Again,” Cincinnati Enquirer, October 14, 1970: 26.

25 Earl Lawson, “Reds Have Hawk Who’s Sudden Death to Hitters,” The Sporting News, June 24, 1972, 11.

26 LaRoche, interview with author, March 21, 2025.

27 Mike Lamey, “Rigney Has Two Kinds of Pitching Problems,” Minneapolis Star, June 26, 1972: 10B.

28 Lawson, “Hitters Just Putty,” 19.

29 Tom Briere, “Granger Saves 2-1 Win for Twins,” Minneapolis Tribune, September 24, 1972; 10C.

30 Jim Klobuchar, “Calvin Griffith: ‘You Live for the Year When You Hit the Bomb,’” Minneapolis Star, April 17, 1974: 10C.

31 Briere.

32 Sid Hartman, “Twins Trades,” Minneapolis Tribune, October 6, 1972: 2C.

33 Neal Russo, “Benson Expects Granger to Do Better with Yanks,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 8, 1973: 5C.

34 Red Foley, “Yanks Gamble on Granger,” New York Daily News, August 10, 1973: C22.

35 Jerome Holtzman, “Granger Replaces Johnson on White Sox Mound Staff,” The Sporting News, April 20, 1974, 26.

36 May, interview with author, March 21, 2025.

37 “Granger Trips Dodgers Again; Astros Win 2nd of Series, 5–4,” Associated Press, (Bryan, Texas) Eagle, June 26, 1975: 1B.

38 May interview.

39 Bob Hertzel, “Reds Fall One Miracle Short in Astros’ Split,” Cincinnati Enquirer, April 21, 1975: 27.

40 Ian MacDonald, “Uphill Climb for Expos but Hopes Sky High,” Montreal Gazette, April 9, 1976: 21.

41 Bob Dunn, “Feeble Expos Fight Batting Slump and Fielding Lapses,” The Sporting News, July 17, 1976, 23.

42 Frank Hyland, “Has-Beens, Never-Weres in Camps,” Atlanta Journal, February 25, 1977: 3D.

43 Granger interview.

44 Salo Otero, “Granger Taking the Screwball Route,” The Sporting News, July 30, 1977, 44.

45 Mike Dyer, “Former Reds Pitcher Wayne Granger Remembers the Final Game at Crosley Field,” Cincinnati.com, July 13, 2015, https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/2015/07/13/former-reds-pitcher-wayne-granger-remembers-the-final-game-at-crosley-field/30102453.

46 John Kiesewetter, “William Schildman Jr., 78, Liked to Photograph the Reds,” Cincinnati Enquirer, September 5, 1999: C9.