PWN0604

JUNE 4, 2020
AN APPRECIATION
Gridley triumphed
over adversity
WEEKLYNEWS.NET - 978-532-5880 5
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Stephen J. Gridley
By Steve Krause
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 firstever
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 hourto-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.”
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