The Night Tom Grieve met the Lone Ranger

I just finished reading Lucky Me by Eddie Robinson, who spent 65 years in baseball as an All Star 1st Baseman, a general manager, and as a scout. It has of great stories from winning the 1948 World Series with a Cleveland Indians that featured Bob Feller, Satchel Paige, and Larry Doby, the inner workings of how trades get made, and dating singing sensation Patti Page .  

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However, my favorite story in the book came in the foreword written by Tom Grieve, best known now as the voice of Texas Rangers television broadcasts for the past 20 years (or so) and prior to that as their General Manager.

What has been forgotten by many is that he was also a player that the began his pro career as the number 6 pick by the Washington Senators in the 1966 draft. Many people felt he was the number 2 talent going into the draft following Reggie Jackson. He had a 9 year career, primarily with Washington/Texas but also with a season each with the New York Mets and St Louis Cardinals. He had a respectable career batting over .300 once and hitting 20 home runs in 1976.

After finishing the 1979 season in the minor leagues, Grieve retired. Shortly after returning to his home in Texas he was invited to visit Robinson, then the General Manager with the Rangers, in owner Brad Corbett's suite for the final game of the 1979 to discuss future opportunities in the teams front office. They offered Grieve a salary of $20,000 a year to become head of group sales for the team, however, there was someone else in the suite also discussing job opportunities with the team the following season - Clayton Moore, the actor most famous for playing the original Lone Ranger. The team offered Moore to make six promotional appearances for the team the  following summer. Moore had to leave the meeting early to catch a flight but the group found something later that the television cowboy hero left behind, one silver bullet inscribed "The Lone Ranger."

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