Big Cat

The Life of Baseball Hall of Famer Johnny Mize

By: Jerry Grillo

Narrated by: Kevin Meyer

Johnny Mize was one of the greatest hitters in baseball’s golden age of great hitters. Born and raised in tiny Demorest, Georgia, in the northeast Georgia mountains, Mize emerged from the heart of Dixie as a Bunyonesque slugger, a quiet but sharp-witted man from a broken home who became a professional player at seventeen, embarking on an extended tour of the expansive St. Louis Cardinals Minor League system.

Mize then spent fifteen seasons terrorizing Major League pitchers as a member of those Cardinals, the New York Giants of Mel Ott and Leo Durocher, and finally with the New York Yankees, who won a record five straight World Series with Mize as their ace in the hole—the best pinch hitter in the American League. Few hitters have combined such meticulous bat control with brute power the way Mize did. Mize was a line-drive hitter who rarely struck out and also hit for distance, to all fields, and usually for a high average. Nicknamed the Big Cat, “nobody had a better, smoother, easier swing than John,” said Cardinals teammate Don Gutteridge. “It was picture perfect.”

This is the first complete biography of the Big Cat.

The book is published University of Nebraska Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©2024 Jerry Grillo (P)2024 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

“This is terrific stuff. Mize is not an easy subject to write about. Grillo makes him come alive.” (Peter Golenbock, author of Whispers of the Gods)

“Jerry Grillo delivers an important book about an overlooked baseball great.” (Marty Appel, Yankees historian and author of Pinstripe Empire and Munson)

“Grillo brings Mize and his achievements to life in this fun read.” (Tom Stanton, author of Ty and the Babe)