After 14 major league seasons, he wrote a book about Black pitchers and sang in nightclubs. “I made way more money in music than I did in baseball,” he said.
Mudcat Grant, who helped take the Minnesota Twins to the 1965 World Series when he became the American League’s first Black pitcher to post a 20-win season, has died at 85. The Twins announced Grant’s death on Twitter but did not immediately provide details. Grant led the American League in victories, winning percentage and shutouts in 1965 and pitched for 14 major league seasons. He was remembered as a leading right-hander of his time, but also for his intriguing nickname, his second career singing and dancing at nightspots, and his book profiling outstanding Black pitchers. Grant, a two-time All-Star, was a mainstay in the starting rotation for the Cleveland Indians and the Twins for much of his career, then became a reliever, most notably with the Oakland A’s and Pittsburgh Pirates. The Indians traded Grant to the Twins in June 1964. His best season came the following year, when he went 21-7, turned in a winning percentage of.750 and threw six shutouts. He pitched two complete-game victories against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series, losing once, and hit a three-run homer as the Dodgers went on to win the series in seven games. Cited by Sporting News as the A.L. pitcher of the year, Grant headed a staff that included Jim Kaat, Jim Perry and Camilo Pascual, backed by a lineup featuring Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Bob Allison and shortstop Zoilo Versalles, the league’s most valuable player. By his account, Jim Grant acquired his nickname at an Indians tryout camp in 1954 through a combination of racial stereotyping and disregard for his geographical roots. Mudcat was the informal name given to large catfish found in muddy streams, especially in the Mississippi Delta, though Grant was born and raised in Florida. “In those days, they thought all Black folk was from Mississippi,” he once told the St. Cloud Times in Minnesota. “They started calling me Mississippi Mudcat. I said, ‘I’m not from Mississippi,’ and they said, ‘You’re still a Mississippi Mudcat.’ And it’s been very good to me.” As a youngster, Grant performed in a choir. Following the 1965 World Series, he founded Mudcat and the Kittens, a song and dance group that played at nightclubs and hotels during the off-seasons and that also gained international bookings.
