Minor League Memories: The Didi Gregorius interview (August 2011)
Good guys wear orange (or oranje in Dutch)
For background and context into what this is, read this explainer https://medium.com/@steelydanrather/what-was-steely-dan-rather-a-journey-through-minor-league-baseball-memories-ba13bea45fd5
originally published July 13, 2011
Bakersfield shortstop Didi Gregorius has shown off some impressive tools in his young career: tremendous range, a strong arm, and promising power potential. Now in his second full season of professional baseball, Gregorius is striving to improve every facet of his game to grow into a successful Major League player.
The 20-year-old may seem young, but he’s been playing baseball all his life thanks to his father, grandfather, and brother also playing ball. His father, also named Didi, played and coached in the Netherlands and Curaçao, and his older brother Johnny played professionally in the Netherlands, Curaçao, and Italy.
The younger Didi was born in Amsterdam and spent time in the Netherlands and Curaçao, going back and forth to see his dad play in Honkbal Hoofdklasse (Major League Baseball in the Netherlands) and living in Curaçao’s capital city Willemstad with his mother.
Gregorius has taken lessons from his family as well as Major Leaguers he’s watched all his life. “[I see] what they do and try to be like them,” he said. “[I’m] trying to be better than they are.”
Another former Major Leaguer has helped Gregorius this season. Ken Griffey, Sr. is the Blaze manager and he has shown the young shortstop how to have fun in baseball. “He has jokes to keep people loose,” he said.
Gregorius was on the 2009 Netherlands World Cup team with several players who contributed to the Oranje’s successful run through the 2009 World Baseball Classic. He looked up to his experienced teammates there and got to stick with J.C. Sulbaran, a right-handed pitcher whom Gregorius has played with since the two were children in Curaçao.
Gregorius and Sulbaran, who went on the disabled list July 9, were reunited as teammates last year in Class-A Dayton. The pair of Cincinnati Reds prospects are together again in Bakersfield this year. “We know each other really well,” Gregorius said.
He’s also used to jetsetting around the globe. Last winter he played for the Canberra Calvary in the Australian Baseball League, where he won the Golden Glove award as the league’s top defensive player. The year before, Gregorius went to Taiwan to play with the Dutch team.
Gregorius came to the California League with the goal to develop each component of his game with equal care and attention. “You can’t work on one thing and have other things go bad,” he said. “I’m working on defense and hitting. Defensively I can say I’m a lot better than I was before.”
Where are they now?
Gregorius blazed through the minors after his 2011 season and was called up to the majors on September 5, 2012. He played 11 seasons in MLB with the Arizona Diamondbacks, New York Yankees, and Philadelphia Phillies. He showed good power during his five seasons with the Yankees, hitting 20+ home runs every year from 2016 to 2018.
As mentioned above, Gregorius has a long history of playing on the Dutch national baseball team. He was on the roster for the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the last three World Baseball Classic tournaments. In the 2011 Baseball World Cup, Gregorius and the Dutch team defeated Cuba 2–1 in the final match, which led to Gregorius and his teammates becoming knighted under the Order of Orange-Nassau.
He’s not quite royalty, but I do like how much Netherlands loves their baseball and will knight their heroes on the diamond. Check In the Margins later this week for more about Curaçao’s baseball pipeline and fellow baseball knights of the Order of Orange-Nassau.
On May 1, Gregorius signed with Algondoneros de Unión Laguna in the Mexican League. He’s wasted no time, hitting .364 in 11 at-bats with a home run last weekend. Major thanks to Shawn Spradling on Twitter for sharing the home run video. Go follow him, he’s good people and he has the hookup on international baseball stuff.
Stupid joke alert: A blurb with a subhed “Nuts stomp Ports”
Next week: He’s big in Japan, and I just learned he was playing over there thanks to an infamous pitcher that anyone with two brain cells to rub together can agree is not a good person. (See if you can guess who)
Previous entries in this series:
Wande Olabisi: From MiLB to MBA
