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Greg Garrett: A Santa Clarita Folk Tale
6/30/2003
Grant Parpan

Don’t pity Greg Garrett.

    Don’t pity a man simply because he passed away 17 years before statistics say he should have.

    Some men transcend statistics.

    Never feel sorry for a man who threw a no-hitter on his 18th birthday, only to come back the next game and strike out 17 batters in a seven-inning game.

    A man who in 56 years, hit against Drysdale and pitched to Bench.

    Feel no sympathy for a man who walks away from one game, only to become a champion at another and a Hall of Famer at the next.

    Don’t pity Greg Garrett, envy him.
    
    A “Big Thing” in a Small Town
    
    “It is fairly safe to say that not many good pitchers have been known for their batting averages, and any young high school star who hits and runs like Garrett should look forward to many offers.”  —  Dan Hill, The Signal, March 25, 1965
    
    The son of a milkman in a tiny agricultural town where everyone had a purpose, Garrett found his calling on the dirt diamonds of Newhall. He first started playing baseball in the William S. Hart Little League, where people took notice of him and his young Yankees teammates.

    The Yankees featured four players who would go on to be drafted by Major League teams: first baseman Gary Guise, center fielder Richard “Dicky” Suggs, catcher Mike Nemback, and Garrett, the team’s top pitcher.

    “That team was a big thing around here, all the way from Little League to Babe Ruth, to the CIF,” classmate Mike Kill says.

    Eventually, the Yankees grew up and into Indians as students at Hart High. They took on the competition in what was then called the Frontier League, a league composed of teams from as far away as Fillmore and Thousand Oaks.

    The Indians were coached by Larry Koentopp, a former minor leaguer and a well-regarded baseball man who was brought in by then Hart principal, George Harris.

    “Larry Koentopp was one of the best men I ever knew,” Nemback says. “He really knew the game of baseball.”

    Under Koentopp, the boys of spring flourished.

    In 1965, the Indians won the Frontier League and nobody was more responsible for the team’s success than Garrett.

    The senior pitcher was 8-0 in league and 14-0 overall.

    On March 12, 1965, Garrett turned 18 years old and with manhood came his first no-hitter. Nemback had the best seat in the house that day.

    “That day his fastball was as hard as he ever threw it,” the Indians’ catcher remembers. “We were all avoiding him on the bench, nobody wanted to mess with his concentration.”

    Garrett followed the no-hitter with a 17-strikeout game and he capped off his streak of dominance with a one-hitter in the next game.

    “He was just a great left-handed pitcher with a good curveball and a fastball with a lot of movement,” Guise says.

    Garrett would go on to throw a mind-bending 124 strikeouts in 80 innings and finish the year with a 0.35 ERA. His only loss of the season came in the CIF opener against El Segundo when he gave up five runs, all of which were unearned.

    The loss marked an end to Garrett’s high school career, but not his legacy.

    When the 1965 all-league team was announced, Garrett was on top of the list, as the Frontier League Player of the Year.

    After high school, Garrett chose to attend college and, along with lifelong teammates Guise and Nemback, he enrolled at Pierce Junior College in the San Fernando Valley.

    One day while playing at Pierce, future Dodger Hall of Famer and Van Nuys native Don Drysdale showed up and pitched batting practice to Garrett and his Brahmas teammates.

    “I caught Drysdale that day,” Nemback recalls. “And there was no difference in his fastball when compared with Greg’s — that’s how good Greg was.”

    That summer, Garrett traveled to Fairbanks, Alaska, to participate in the Alaskan Baseball League, an invitational league for the nation’s top college players. In the league’s 44-year history, it has produced 179 big leaguers.

    Garrett played for the Alaska Goldpanners, where he was part of a pitching staff that boasted a 2.17 ERA. Future Major Leaguers Tom House and Bill Lee were also a part of that staff, and current Cincinnati Reds manager Bob Boone was the team’s catcher.

    The Goldpanners had their finest season in 1966, going 50-13 and winning the league championship. But the players weren’t paid, so they had to find odd jobs, and Garrett found employment as a road worker.

    “It was so cold and Greg hated the taste of coffee, so he would drink hot chocolate to keep warm out there,” Garrett’s first wife Pam Koller recalls. “He would tell me, ‘I didn’t care what those guys said, I can’t drink coffee,’ and it was cold.”

    After the summer, Garrett headed back to the mainland and enrolled at Gonzaga University in Washington, where he was reunited with his old coach Larry Koentopp.

    Koentopp was now the head coach at the college and Garrett followed him north to play one last season with his high school mentor.

    In those days, it was a young man’s greatest fear to be drafted into the military, but Garrett was involved in a different kind of draft, the Major League Baseball draft, where he was selected by the San Francisco Giants.

    In 1968, Garrett started his professional career by playing rookie ball in Salt Lake City and winter ball in the Arizona Instructional League. Like many minor leaguers, Garrett kept unpacking his bags just to pack them back up again and travel to the next city. So in 1969 he pitched for both the Giants’ A team in San Jose and AA club in El Paso.

    Garrett earned the El Paso vacation by posting a 2.81 ERA and striking out 113 batters in 80 innings while pitching at San Jose. Once he arrived at the next level, he didn’t disappoint, posting a 6-2 record and a 3.03 ERA — the highest ERA he would post at any level.
    
    The Halo Days
    
    “Former Hart pitcher Greg Garrett, who has just finished a stint in the Arizona Instructional Winter League, has been rewarded by the California Angels with a spot on their 40-man roster.”   — The Signal, December 24, 1969
    
    On November 17, 1969, Garrett left the Giants organization and signed a contract with the California Angels. His first experience with the Halos came in the Arizona Winter League, where he shrunk his earned run average back down to 2.61 in 32 innings of work. His success in winter ball earned him a spot as one of 21 pitchers on the Angels’ 40-man roster and an invitation to spring training.

    It was in spring training where the book on Garrett would add it’s most fabled chapter.
    The setting was the annual Freeway Series, which in those days was a preseason meeting between Southern California’s two local clubs — the Angels and the Dodgers.

    In one particular encounter, Garrett picked off both Maury Wills and Willie Davis. No small feat, considering Wills and Davis combined to steal 984 bases in their careers. But over time, the story has become something of a fish tale. Some remember Garrett picking both of them off in the same inning. Others remember him picking off each man more than once.

    Then there is the matter of the parties involved — was it Maury Wills and Willie Davis?, or Maury Wills and Willie Mays?, or Maury Wills and Eric Davis? If truth should find its place in such tales, then Mays never played for the Dodgers and Eric Davis was only 8 years old in 1970.

    “It was Maury Wills and Willie Davis,” Guise recalls emphatically. “And it was in the same game, not the same inning.”

    Regardless of who and when it was, Garrett and his pickoff move found their way on the Angels’ opening day roster that April. And on the 24th of April, he relieved Andy Messersmith with two outs in the fifth inning of the Angels’ game against the Washington Senators. He struck out the only batter he faced. It was his Major League debut.

    Eight days later, he beat the Red Sox at Fenway Park to earn his first big league win. It was the first victory by a southpaw at Fenway that season.

    Garrett would win a total of five games in 1970 and his 2.65 ERA was the best on the Angels staff. But Garrett reportedly feuded with pitching coach Larry Sherry on  numerous occasions, and shortly after playing winter ball in Puerto Rico, he was shipped to Cincinnati where the construction of a Big Red Machine was underway.

    “He didn’t get along with (Larry) Sherry,” Nemback says. “I think that had a lot to do with why he got traded.”

    So after one season in the American League, Garrett packed his bags again and headed for the National League.
    
    The “Little” Red Machine
    
    “Angel pitcher Greg Garrett, who was once Hart High School’s wonderboy of the mound, was last week traded to Cincinatti.”  — The Signal December 23, 1970
    
    The man who had played in parts of California, Utah, Alaska and Arizona was now headed east of the Mississippi for the first time in his baseball career. This time he brought company.

    Garrett had met Pam Koller while walking his Great Dane outside of the stadium following a game with the Angels. The two began dating and once Garrett was traded, a decision needed to be made regarding the couple’s future.

    “Greg said, ‘I got traded so we need to speed things up,’” Koller recollects. “So we got married in February and headed straight for spring training in Tampa.”

    It was the first of many journeys the newlyweds would take together.

    “He had mixed emotions about going to the Reds,” Koller says. “I don’t think he wanted to leave home, but he was excited about going to play with those guys.”

    “Those guys” included Hall of Famers Johnny Bench and Tony Perez, and would-be Hall of Famer Pete Rose.

    The Reds were coming off a trip to the postseason in 1970, their first year under the guidance of young manager Sparky Anderson, and they had a new nickname to go with it; The Big Red Machine.

    In order to acquire Garrett, the “Machine” parted ways with veteran pitcher Jim Maloney, who had pitched in Cincinatti for 10 seasons and twice won 20 games.

    Garrett wouldn’t be so lucky.

    He pitched just nine innings for the Reds, with one start and one relief appearance. He allowed just one run, but walked 10 batters and only struck out two.

    He often sparred with Anderson and was shipped to the Twins organization at season’s end.

    “Sparky and Greg never saw eye-to-eye, I wouldn’t say they had a falling out, they just didn’t see eye-to-eye,” Koller said.

    Garrett never pitched another inning in the majors.

    In 1972, he pitched for the Twins’ AAA affiliate in North Carolina, but he retired at the season’s end, citing arm problems as his reason.

    “He came home and his arm was in a cast,” Garrett’s sister Kathy remembered.
    But Koller saw deeper reasons for his retirement.

    “In those day’s, teams owned players,” Koller says. “He couldn’t play golf or go bowling because they wouldn’t let him. He just got fed up and he really wanted to go back to school and start teaching.”

    However, Koller doesn’t contend that Garrett had arm problems.

    “The Angels had him up throwing just about every game that season Greg played for them, his arm was tired after that year,” she says.

    So Garrett headed back to California, attending classes at both Cerritos College and Cal State Fullerton, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in physical education.

    In 1978, he returned to Newhall and began a two-year stint teaching physical education as a substitute in the William S. Hart district.

    While at Hart, he volunteered his services to the Indians baseball team and coach Bud Murray by helping out the pitchers.

    In 1980, Garrett began work as a handy man for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) where he would work for more than 15 years.

    But soon after beginning work at HUD, Garrett began to feel a familiar impulse.

    One that he couldn’t resist.

    The Constant Competitor
    
    “Greg loved to compete, he needed to compete, unfortunately that’s why he got into weightlifting,”  — Pam Koller, Garrett’s first wife
    
    In 1983, Garrett began hanging out at various gyms in and around the Los Angeles area.

    While working out at Gold’s Gym in Reseda, he became a friend and workout partner of professional wrestler and actor Hulk Hogan.

    At first, weightlifting was a hobby for Garrett, but as he became bigger and stronger, he started to view the sport from a competitive angle.

    He won six consecutive weightlifting tournaments between 1983-85. His body continued to swell.

    Major League Baseball lists Garrett’s playing size as 6 feet, 200 pounds, but by the time he made the transition from weightlifter to powerlifter, he had beefed up to 302 pounds.

    He began to travel again, competing in events from as far as London and Peru. In March 1986, he competed for Team USA against Iceland and in August of that year he set the American bench pressing record at 572 pounds at the Senior Olympics.

    He continued on, and in September of 1987, he won the IPF World Master Powerlifting Championship, and set the master division record with a 530-pound bench press.

    He won the world championship twice more before 1991, setting 22 world records in the process.

    But in 1991, Garrett’s health would force him to give up the sport. He was in need of a kidney transplant and his powerlifting days came to a sudden end. The speculation on the possibility of steroid use continued.

    “That’s what happens when you start doing that junk ... steroids,” Guise says. “But he was such a competitor and he always wanted to be the best at what he did.”

    Garrett’s sister, Kathy, is one who firmly believes Garrett never used steroids.

    “He never did any of that stuff,” she says. “He worked out six-to-eight times a week, that’s how he got so big.”

    After the transplant, Garrett’s health continued to take a downward spiral. In June 2000, he had an operation to remove skin cancer.

    Less than a year later, Garrett had a quadruple-bypass operation and a year after that, he was diagnosed with the liver and pancreas cancer. It was those two diagnoses that would eventually take his life.

    Liver, heart, and kidney disease are all common side effects of steroid use.

    “No I don’t think (it led to his death); he had liver and pancreas cancer,” Koller says. “I think it could have had something to do with his kidneys though.”

    Regardless of the cause of his kidney failure, Garrett’s health forced him to stop competing.

    Instead, he would remain a fixture in and around the gym to train other weightlifters.

    “He was like the daddy for everybody,” fellow body-builder Charlie McLean remembers. “At every contest, Greg was right there.”

    Koller urged him to become a personal trainer.

    “He would say, ‘I don’t want to train; I can’t charge people for that,’” Koller says.    And soon, he walked away from the sport for good.

    Once again an athlete without a sport, he was a competitor with no means to compete.
    Shortly after weightlifting, Garrett lost his job with HUD, due to government cuts, and in 1995 he and Koller divorced.

    He began work as a truck driver with the Andy Gump company and so began the final chapter on Garrett.

    The Local Babe Ruth
    
    “When Greg played local softball out here, he used to frequently hit home runs over at Seco Park that left the field, went over Seco Canyon, went over the median on the other side and into people’s back yards. The guy was the local Babe Ruth.”   — John Boston, classmate and Signal columnist
    
    Perhaps it was a yearning to return to the game that he grew up with or maybe it had something to do with the changes in his life, but in the mid-90s Garrett began to play in the Senior Softball League.

    “At first Greg was a little rusty,” softball teammate Roland Bleitz recalls. “But he blossomed right before our eyes.”

    He would become a legend in senior softball circuits, winning seven world championships with the Legends of Sawtre, Texas, a team that some consider to be the greatest team ever assembled.

    After playing for the Legends, he played for the Seacrest Mavericks of Huntington Beach and won three more championships, giving him a ring for every finger.

    In 1999, he was one of the original seven members inducted into the Senior Softball Hall of Fame.

    Ridge Hooks, president of the Senior Softball Hall of Fame, spoke divinely of Garrett on the organization’s web-site.

    “Greg is referred to as ‘Monster Man’ for the way he crushes the ball, he is one of the top-five home run hitters in the country for senior softball,” Hooks states.

    Garrett’s softball statistics are incomparable.

    In his years with the Mavericks, he posted a .730 average with 670 RBIs and 209 home runs in just over 900 at bats.

    While playing softball in the summer of 2000, Garrett met his second wife, Michelle Hesser-Garrett. But in April 2002, two months before the couple married, Garrett was diagnosed with pancreas and liver cancer.

    It was too late this time.

    The man who had lived 1,000 years in just 55, had only one year left.

    This past April, Garrett played in his final softball tournament despite undergoing chemotherapy a week earlier. A weak and tired “Monster Man” hit a home run in his final game.

    Just one more accomplishment cancer couldn’t touch.

    On June 7, the disease that invaded Garrett’s pancreas and liver took his life — a life, that although short, imparted the tallest of tales.

1966 Alaska Goldpanners
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