LYNNFIELD — If a life was ever defined by sports terminology, Stephen J. Gridley was knocked down by some combination of a high hard one to the head and a knee-buckling curve.
The juxtaposition of terms seems appropriate for Gridley, who was a baseball guy’s baseball guy on the North Shore. On that, the people who coached with and against him in the North Shore Baseball League say, there is no doubt.
Gridley, 48, originally from Peabody, died last Wednesday and already his loss is being felt, even if the baseball diamonds are empty because of COVID-19 restrictions.
“He saved me so many times in my life as a coach,” said Marblehead High varsity baseball coach Mike Giardi, who, along with Gridley, has run Champions of Peabody in the North Shore Baseball League (Gridley was his coach there, too). “He had that ability to talk me down if I got too excited.”
Gridley was a standout baseball player at Bishop Fenwick, and went on to play for various amateur leagues around the area, including Lonnie’s in Salem, another NSBL team.
“He was a heck of a player,” said Swampscott coach Joe Caponigro, who also directs the Swampscott Sox in the NSBL.
“He played on that Lonnie’s team that beat us in the first-ever league final. That’s when I met him.”
But, said Giardi, Gridley started having back issues that ultimately led to surgery. During the procedure, there was an inadvertent injury to Gridley’s spinal cord and he never regained the use of his legs.
Confined to a wheelchair, Gridley barely skipped a beat — at least when it came to coaching.
“You can only imagine,” Giardi said, “what it took for him to get out of bed, and do all the things he had to do to get ready. It had to be an hour-to-hour process, and he never wanted to have to ask for anyone’s help.
“You also never heard him complain about it. At least not in public. He did that for 20-odd years. We were close, so he might say something to me. But once we were out, on the baseball field, nothing.”
He channeled his competitiveness into being a fiend for preparation, Giardi said.
“We all need that second guy,” he said. “Everybody’s got that guy in the background who helps you prepare and keep you sane. That was Grids to me. He was always there.”
When Giardi became head basketball coach at Marblehead, among the first things he did was name Gridley his assistant.
“We’d play a game on a Tuesday night, and by 10 the next morning, Grids would have the film broken down, and every conceivable statistic recorded. That’s how he was. And that’s how you have to be. You don’t just prepare a couple of plays ahead, it’s two, three games ahead. That’s what you want to do if you want to win, and we have won. Often.”
Gridley organized and ran the Lightning Baseball New England AAU Program for many years before coaching Vikings AAU baseball.
Chris Carroll, who coaches varsity football for English, has also been a player/manager for the North Shore Phillies of the NSBL. His right-hand man for many of those years was the late Jeff Blydell. Carroll sees a lot of similarities in the dynamic.
“I remember coaching with Jeff, and mentioning to him how much I admired Steve,” said Carroll. “He was a good baseball guy, and a good guy in general.
“It’s unfortunate to lose a guy this young,” said Carroll. “But the impact he had on the athletes he coached gives you an idea of his own character, and the type of person he was.”
