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May 29, 2017
By all accounts, Eddie Grant was a serviceable third baseman, a smart player, and an able pinch player for such teams as the Cincinnati Reds and the New York Giants. He was a Harvard-educated man who became a lawyer and played baseball for most of his adult life. He even had the fortune of playing in the 1913 World Series. But, it was his final sacrifice that we should most remember.
According to writer Mike Bates, the young Eddie Grant paid his way through Harvard and law school as a journeyman ball player until he finally broke into the major leagues in 1907, when he got his shot with the Philadelphia Phillies.
Ever the Harvard man, some players were amused by the well-spoken Grant, especially as he shagged fly balls yelling in his always proper English, “I have it,” instead of the more common, “I got it.”
Over the next decades, he played about three seasons each for the Phillies, the Cincinnati Reds, and the New York Giants before he retired. As Bates reports, he had a solid, if not shining, career in the majors, he was well liked, and retired in 1915 with accolades from everyone who knew him.
Grant was already in his 30s when war broke out in Europe, and in 1917 when the U.S. jumped in to go “over there,” Grant decided he was obligated as an American to put himself on the line for his countrymen.
