If the founder of the Wildcat Baseball League, Dale McMillen, was known as Mr. Wildcat, then John S. Grantham Sr. had to be Mr. Wildcat Jr., a longtime friend and colleague said Wednesday.
Grantham was remembered as an organized and dynamic leader who continued and exceeded the mission behind the popular Fort Wayne baseball league.
Grantham, 74, died Wednesday in Fort Wayne.
He served as president of the Wildcat Baseball League for 42 years until he stepped down in 2007.
The youth baseball league was founded in 1961 by McMillen, a local philanthropist, who wanted to give children who didn’t make a Little League team a chance to play baseball. Kids just needed to pay for a shirt and a cap and McMillen financed the rest, said Jack Massucci, current vice president of the league.
“He wanted kids to be taught fundamentals but also how to be good citizens,” Massucci said.
Massucci got to know Grantham, who began as a site director in 1963 and was elected president in 1965 shortly after the league started, remembers the train trips they took to Detroit and Chicago with 2,500 children.
“(Grantham) had (the trip) organized to the most finest, minute detail and it was run very, very well,” Massucci said.
“He was what you might call a dynamic leader, very well organized. He really made the program really run for many, many years.”
It was Grantham who recruited Bill Derbyshire, now the president, to the league. Both men were teaching at Weisser Park Elementary School, and Derbyshire credits Grantham’s influence for getting him involved with Wildcat baseball.
“His fingerprints are all over the Wildcat program, whether it’s with the staff or with the philosophy,” Derbyshire said.
Grantham was instrumental in getting Sports Illustrated to publish an article on the league and NBC Nightly News to feature the organization on its broadcast, Derbyshire said.
“He was always promoting Wildcat baseball, its value, its worth to the community, to the kids, to the parents,” Derbyshire said.
Grantham also taught at Kekionga Middle School for four years and at Jefferson Middle School for 13 years. He retired in 1991 after being at North Side High School for 11 years, where he served as an administrator, counselor and assistant athletic director.
Grantham was bestowed a number of awards, including the Summit Athletic Conference Coaches Award; the Charles W. Wilt Sr. Memorial Award; the Hilliard Gates Lifetime Achievement Award; and Indiana’s highest civilian award, the Sagamore of the Wabash.
Former Fort Wayne Mayor Paul Helmke honored Grantham’s commitment to the youth of Fort Wayne and he was inducted into the Fort Wayne Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998 and into the Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001.
Public visitation is 1 to 5 p.m. Friday at D.O. McComb and Sons Maplewood Park Funeral Home, 4017 Maplecrest Road.
Memorials may be made to the Allen County SPCA. or SCAN.
