BOBBY GRICH : Retiring to Race Cars and River Rafts, Not Rocking Chairs

Bobby Grich at the wheel.

“All right, here’s the straightaway . . . I start to turn coming into the first turn . . . down-shifting to third . . . there’s second . . . turn to the left . . . come out hard . . . miss the wall . . . “

It’s the beachfront site of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, and Grich is talking his way around the course with a reporter as he prepares for Saturday’s pro-celebrity race.

“Under the Grand Prix bridge . . . turn seven, down-shift to second gear, brake . . . hairpin turn . . . oooohhh .”

With great screeching of tires, Grich almost gets the Celica sideways, then wrestles it straight and punches the accelerator, roaring down the Shoreline Drive straightaway again. He is having the time of his life.

“That was great, huh?” he says after pulling to a stop in the pits. “I’d like to see Kareem Abdul-Jabbar get into one of these (cars) when his career’s over.”

Baseball was Grich’s life for 20 professional seasons, the last 15 in the major leagues with the Orioles and Angels. In a parody of a TV skit, he has told audiences, with a Latin accent, “ Beisbol been very, very good to me.”

But now he seems to be in a headlong rush to put as much time and distance between the game and himself as possible, pursuing the good life the way he attacked the fastballs and battled the grounders.

“I caught a marlin in Cabo the first week in November,” he said. “I went scuba diving for the first time in my life in Hawaii the second week in November.”

The day after the race, he’ll leave on a ski trip to Canada. What’s next? Sky-diving?

“Yeah, I do want to sky-dive,” he said. “I want to try it once. I’ve thought about hang-gliding, but hang-gliding’s too dangerous. But I’d like to parachute at least once.”

Grich has almost--but not quite--outrun the pain of the Angels’ collapse against Boston in the American League playoff series last year. Leading the best-of-7 series, 3-1, and the fifth game going into the ninth inning at home, 5-2, they lost that game, 7-6, then submitted meekly at Boston in the next two to lose the pennant.

“It’s been how many months now?” Grich asked, counting grimly on his fingers. “One, two, three, four, five months now, and I still think about it every day. Not a day goes by I don’t think about it.”

Grich, 38, announced his retirement after the final game, but his decision wasn’t impulsive. It wasn’t because he hit only .208 in the series. He didn’t suddenly feel tired. He got plenty of rest in ‘86, appearing in only 98 games, a career low. He had decided in spring training that he was playing his last season.

His contract was up, and the Angels had indicated little interest in negotiating with him and others who were about to become free agents. Actually, while platooning at second base, Grich hit .268 for the season, two points over his career average, and built on a legacy of club achievements, including most home runs, 154, and a longevity of 10 years and 1,222 games as an Angel, topped only by Jim Fregosi’s 11 and 1,429.

But Boston, where it all ended, still nags him.

“I wish I would have played better,” he said. “I regret going out that way individually, and I regret going out that way with our team. It was such a downer--such a down way to go out. Not just losing the playoffs but the way we lost. I almost wish that Boston had blown us out four straight, 8-0 or something every game. As I look back on my career, that’s the one part I really wish I could have changed.”

Although Grich was a rookie with the 1970 Orioles, he never played in a World Series. He was a bench-bound rookie when the Orioles beat the Reds in five games.

“I was just a cheerleader,” Grich said. “It’s not the same. You have to play in it to really appreciate it.”

Maybe Gene Mauch and the Angels are doomed never to know the thrill, either. Maybe, Grich believes, there are reasons.

“A family type of feeling, a pull-for-each-other type of aura, takes time to build up, but it’s important as hell,” he said.

That feeling was most pronounced in 1979 when the Angels won their first West Division title, Grich said. Fregosi was the manager.

“We had the personalities that year that really meshed,” Grich said. “Everybody really pulled for everybody. The feeling among the players was so close that it pulled us through a lot of tough spots. Fregosi’s leadership had a lot to do with it. He knew how to keep his team loose.

“It’s impossible to do that every year if you’re constantly making changes, but when you have that magic combination you’re usually successful.”

One problem in the Angels’ family may be that most of the children are adopted, as Grich was in 1977. As long as there is an element of free agency, the Angels will continue to change, he said, “because so many players want to come out here (for) the weather, the stadium and because Mr. (Gene) Autry is the best owner in baseball.

“You can add to your team with free agents, but you have to have their attitudes high on your list. You just don’t go out and get a player because he’s a great player. You get one whose attitude is gonna fit in with your team.”

Was Grich, non-controversial all of his career, about to say what he really thought of, say, Reggie Jackson? Or Gene Mauch? General Manager Mike Port?

No, still the team player, he said he wasn’t referring to anyone in particular. After all, the Angels are throwing him a “Bobby Grich Day” May 1.

“I was very proud that they would do that for me,” he said.

It wasn’t necessary, he said, joking, because “they thanked me the 1st and the 15th (paydays), throughout my career. They always treated me very well.”

It appears that rookie Mark McLemore will be the Angels’ new second baseman.

“I’ll be curious as to how he does, how the Angels do,” Grich said. “I’ll wish ‘em all well, but it’s not something I can’t wait to wake up in the morning to read about. I might go three or four days without ever knowing what’s going on. I might not even think about it.”

Grich’s life goes on, with gusto, and he tries not to look back.

“I haven’t regretted my decision for a minute,” he said. “I made the right decision for me and I feel real good about it. It was time for me to get out.

“I had reached my financial goals. I did not want to continue on as a utility player. It’s a boring existence. I don’t care if the guy’s gonna pay me $500,000. I have enough money to be very comfortable, and I wanted to start enjoying it.

“I couldn’t wait to start enjoying myself, there are so many things I wanted to do. I was like an animal being caged. I just wanted to break loose. I’d had enough of baseball. I had concentrated very hard through those years. I worked my butt off. I really applied myself. You can push only so long.”

Grich studied the large, bony hands that pounded out 1,833 hits and turned countless double plays.

“My body told me some things, too,” he said. “Some small things. Tendinitis in both elbows. My thumb, the nerve in here from being jammed so many times. There’s a nerve in there that just gets beat up from years of getting pounded. You can’t grip the bat hard, and I don’t want to go onto the field if I don’t have . . . what good am I?”

A chance encounter with Chris Pook, president of the Long Beach Grand Prix Assn., in a Long Beach doughnut shop near Grich’s home last September fit right into his plans.

“He asked me if I wanted to race,” Grich said. “I asked him, ‘When is the race?’ and he said, ‘April 4.’ I’d already plugged in a ski trip to Canada April 4 to the 11th, so I figured I couldn’t do it.”

But later, when he received an official invitation, he postponed the ski trip a day. Although he has lived in Long Beach most of his life, Grich has never seen the race.

“It’s always the same time as the Freeway series (against the Dodgers). I could hear the cars winding out as I left my house to go to the ballpark,” he said.

“This has been great, a whole different dimension and experience. It’s really a rush. I’ve never been in a race car, obviously, where they say, ‘Go as fast as you can go.’ ”

Dan McKeever, who tutored the celebrity drivers through the fundamentals, said that Grich had the potential to become a top performer, but that’s what they say about all the rookies in the spring.

Meanwhile, Grich has other plans.

“I’m looking forward to a few things this summer,” he said. “Got a houseboat reserved for Lake Powell for a week in June, where you can pull your ski boat behind. I’m gonna river-raft in Colorado . . . “

And somewhere, someday he may finally shake that final Angel pain.