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Oral history: The time David Ross hit his first career homer off Mark Grace
- Updated: June 4, 2016
11:30 AM ET
CHICAGO — It was Sept. 2, 2002. A day current Chicago Cubs catcher David Ross and former Cub Mark Grace will remember forever. Grace was playing for the Arizona Diamondbacks under Bob Brenly — a former Cubs television analyst — one year after the Diamondbacks helped Grace to a World Series ring. Now he was going to get his first and only chance to pitch in the big leagues.
The Diamondbacks were down 18-0 against the Los Angeles Dodgers going into the ninth inning while Ross was playing in his fourth big league game. Another former Cub and good friend of Grace, Rick Sutcliffe, was broadcasting the blowout for ESPN.
In the ninth inning Ross hit his first career home run off of Grace and now after hitting 99 more over the next 15 years he’s getting ready to retire after the season, but not before some reminiscing. Three of the participants that night are at Wrigley Field this weekend as Grace is the Diamondbacks hitting coach and Brenly a broadcaster.
Here are Ross, Grace, Brenly and Sutcliffe’s memories of the home run.
Grace: It was a big game. Us and the Dodgers were battling it out for the western division. I remember the day before we had used a bunch of our relievers then that night we had a short start by somebody (Rick Helling) then a couple of our relievers went in there and got cuffed around.
Ross: I went into the game late and got my first major league hit off Eddie Oropesa, sidearm lefty. A double in the gap.
Brenly: We were getting our rear ends kicked by the Dodgers that night and they were over there yucking it up having a good time on the first base dugout. We weren’t having as much fun on the third base side.
Grace: The only reliever left was Byung-hyun Kim, our closer. I went to Bob Brenly. That was my last year in the big leagues. I wasn’t any good. I went up to Bob and I said ‘hey look next inning I can go out there and throw strikes.’ He was like ‘are you sure?’ And I said ‘yes I’m sure.’ I won’t embarrass us by walking the park.
Sutcliffe: We were doing the game for ESPN and it’s a blowout and I look down in the dugout and I’m winding my arm telling him (Grace) to get it going. He looked at me and tells me later he walked over to Bob Brenly and said ‘I’ll clean this mess up.’
Brenly: We didn’t want to use any more relievers in a …
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