Birmingham Post-Herald -
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Published on: 6/15/2002
Last Visited: 6/15/2002
Sometime Sunday, Birmingham Barons hitting coach Gregg Ritchie will call his dad in Woodbridge, Va., and wish him a happy Father's Day.
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Gregg Ritchie asked rhetorically."When I was 10, he cut me from a football team and told me to take my buddy with me.He later told me that he cut me because I thought I had the team made and wasn't trying hard enough.
"When I was 12, he cut me from a baseball team.He was reading off the names of the players who were cut and he said, 'Ritchie.' He said I wasn't good enough to play at that level at that time."
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"I got into a fight with some boys in our front yard and I went into the house crying," Ritchie recalled."My dad asked my mom, 'What's wrong with that boy?' She told him I got into a fight and got my butt kicked.He asked her if I fought back or just let them pummel me.She told him I curled up like one of those (roly-poly) bugs.
"My dad didn't say anything.He grabbed me and put me in the car.
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Ritchie went on to become a two-time Golden Glove champion, winning more than 70 fights and losing only four.But when he was 15 or 16, he was bloodied in a bout and his mom forced him to quit.
All the while, Ritchie continued to play football, basketball and baseball, with his dad coaching him in every sport.
"He had me running track, playing competitive tennis, everything," Ritchie said."I couldn't say whether he forced me to play or not.It was more like, 'Let's go.' The only thing he forced me to do was boxing."
And even though his dad twice cut him, Ritchie looks back and realizes that the experience was good for him.
"He told me because I was small, I had to work hard and learn the fundamentals to show I was better than everybody else," Ritchie said.
Ritchie starred in baseball at North Stafford High School in Virginia and graduated the same year as his younger sister Tina and his mother Sandy.
"My sister had skipped a grade and my mom got married at 16 and had me at 17, and didn't finish school," Ritchie said."But she went back and earned her GED, and we all graduated from the same school in 1982.
"My mom went to a program (to become) a dental hygienist.Now, she's a dental hygienist.That was a good lesson, too.She showed me you have to finish things to get where you want to go."
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At 5-foot-8, 147 pounds, Ritchie had few offers from colleges to play baseball after graduating from high school, so he wound up at George Washington University.
While there, he became an All-America, and in his senior season, he led the nation in hitting (.492) during the regular season and finished second (.479) after the postseason.He also was seventh in pitching with a 10-2 record and 1.90 earned-run average in 1986.
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A few years ago, Ritchie was inducted into the George Washington Hall of Fame and named to the school's all-century baseball team for the 1900s.
By the time he left George Washington, Ritchie had grown to 6-foot, 170 pounds.The San Francisco Giants selected him in the eighth round of the 1986 draft as a centerfielder, and he added 40 pounds of muscle in his first four seasons of pro ball.
Ritchie spent seven years in the Giants' farm system, but never advanced higher than Triple-A.
He also spent time playing in Mexico and Taiwan, trying to reach the big leagues.
Early in the 1995 season, Ritchie was playing for Oklahoma City, the Texas Rangers' Triple-A team, and was released for the first time in his career.He returned to Mexico to play.
That fall, he was traveling around the nation and speaking about hitting at conventions, something he had been doing for several years, as well as showing off some of the things he had invented, including a pitching tarp.
He was in Orlando, Fla., and had a booth set up next to Dewey Robinson, a pitching coordinator in the Chicago White Sox organization at the time.
"Dewey told me had heard me talk about hitting and asked me if I wanted to be a coach for the White Sox," Ritchie said.
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Ritchie, 38, became the Barons' hitting coach in 2000 and is in his seventh season as a hitting coach in the White Sox system.
He will be a part of Barons Manager Wally Backman's coaching staff of the West Division All-Stars for the Southern League All-Star game Wednesday at Smokies Park in Sevierville, Tenn.
Ritchie has coached several of the White Sox's major league players and son of their top prospects, including former Barons Joe Borchard and Joe Crede.
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"I still get a thrill being on the field and working with guys and trying to win games," Ritchie said."And when you see guys put it together, it's satisfying when you know you had a small part in helping them get better."
Ritchie also operates his own baseball school, "The Starting Lineup," during the offseason at his home in Fredericksburg, Va..He owns KaeLo Sports Inc., in which he writes baseball instruction manuals and invents techniques and products for youth baseball players and has patents on instructional devices called "The Hitter's Seat" and "The Pitch."
And he is also a father.He and his wife Kelly have four children, Kaetlin (10 years old), Logan (8), Riley (4), and Arizona (2), who's named after the Paul Revere and the Raiders' 1970 song "Arizona."
"I'm gone a lot, but I was there for all four of their births," Ritchie said."I couldn't do what I do if it weren't for my wife.She's a great mother."
But it's his dad, the man who cut him twice, who has been the biggest influence in his life.
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