Against Jaded Pro Sports Landscape, Altruisic Granderson Stands Out

NEW YORK -- Curtis Granderson made sure every business card was laminated, the times and places immaculately engraved. He confirmed the restaurant reservations, paid for the hotel rooms, wrote down exact instructions for the subway to Yankee Stadium. This is how they would get to and from the airport; here was the nightclub where everyone would meet at 11:30 p.m., sharp. If Granderson didn't already have a pretty good job, he'd be a fine community organizer.

As it is, Granderson plays center field for the Detroit Tigers -- when he's not going to extraordinary lengths to make life a whole lot better for people he may or may not know. Searching for an escape from the daily rundown of athletes involved in steroid scandals, gunplay, drug use and assorted mayhem? Granderson might be ground zero for good work and good deeds.

It makes you dizzy just looking at the amount of charity Granderson does. Most of it is designed to enhance the lives of students in urban communities, and you need a box score to detail it all. He doesn't just write checks or lend his name; Granderson gets his hands dirty planning and running fundraisers, and the lives he's already touched in his 28 years on this planet will leave a far greater impression than anything he accomplishes on the baseball field.

There's his Grand Kids Foundation, his annual celebrity basketball game, his Scoring For Schools initiative. He's a spokesperson for both the Tigers' "Gloves for Kids" campaign and the Detroit Free Press Newspapers in Education program. He's hosting a charity gig July 23 with the Detroit Wine Organization, where teammates Edwin Jackson and Ryan Perry will join Granderson in a bachelor auction. He invited Michigan fourth-graders to submit artwork that captured their career goals, chose the most inspiring and included them in his book, All You Can Be, which will be released in August.

Those are just some of Granderson's selfless outlets, and if we were to list anymore, Jim Leyland's head might explode.

"I love Curtis because he's a great human being and a good player, but I also worry that he's doing too much," the Detroit manager tells me. "I'm concerned about it, because he's the type of guy who won't say no to anybody, and I think sometimes it gets in his way a little bit. He's just one of those guys, he's got a presence about him and a poise about him, a charisma about him. He's special, and he attracts people naturally."

Leyland says he's had conversations with Granderson about blending his philanthropy and his occupation. Not that Granderson's baseball gifts don't shine: He leads the American League with 287 runs scored since 2007, and has 175 extra-base hits and 47 triples since 2006. "He's very receptive in our conversations," Leyland says. "We don't want to discourage him from doing good."

Altruism is in Granderson's blood, as much as any sport.

So his combination of speed and power sometimes reminds observers of Willie Mays and Ken Griffey, Jr.? Granderson gets a far bigger thrill when a child tells him about receiving an "A" on his report card. So Granderson hit a triple and then scored the winning run for the AL in his first All-Star Game earlier this week? He shrugs, says he'll probably have a few more three-baggers before his career is over, and then, as if a light has been flipped on from somewhere deep within, he becomes animated and starts to glow as the conversation turns to the miracles found behind school walls.

"There are a lot of kids who won't go to school for a number of reasons," Granderson says. "Hopefully we can change that. So many kids don't realize for things they like to do, they can go to school for it. If you like cell phones, you can go to school for technology. If you like video games, you can be a video game engineer. If you like music, you can be a person working for MTV, BET, CMT. Those are great jobs, doing what you love."



It's Friday night and the Tigers are in New York for a weekend series against the Yankees. His friends from the Midwest, all 18 of them, have arrived safely via the No. 4 train from their midtown hotel (where Granderson has picked up the entire bill for five days) and are checking out the scenery around the stadium. What Granderson did for his buddies so they could celebrate a bachelor party in New York in style is just window dressing to the bigger picture, but it offers a nice illustration on how far he extends his generosity, just because he can.

"You know what's crazy? He planned the whole trip for us down to almost every minute of every day," says Joe Lacy, who first met Granderson in the fourth grade, when they were going over spelling homework. Lacy shows me the laminated cards Granderson personally made for each traveler/partier, so they'll have their own tour guide, even while he's otherwise occupied with running the bases and stuff. Stops at all the hotspots are listed: Hudson Terrace was to be their post-game Friday haunt, the doorman ready for Granderson-plus-18.

Footing most of the New York bill is nothing compared to the gift Granderson recently gave his childhood friend. Lacy's sister Rachael, a soldier preparing for duty in the Middle East, died from complications of an anthrax vaccination in 2003. A few years earlier, Lacy's brother Jemell was murdered in Las Vegas on New Year's Day. "I was lost," Lacy says of the dark hole he found himself in. He dropped out of college, spent a few years wondering and wandering.

Finally, Granderson told Lacy he'd pay the remaining tuition if Lacy returned to college. Lacy graduates from Governors State University in August, with a double major in English and Spanish.

A similar offer from Granderson to another friend hasn't been cashed yet. "But I have hope he'll take me up on it," Granderson says. "I believe no matter what you do, finish up your college. That way things you want to do, you don't get eliminated because you don't have that degree."

Granderson is sitting in front of his locker in the visitor's clubhouse, a constant beacon for reporters, teammates and employees from both teams. Soon the bachelor party will be seated in section 226, row six, right off the Tigers' dugout. They'll witness Granderson smack a leadoff double against Yankee pitcher A.J. Burnett, score a run, get hit by a pitch in his next at-bat and smash a home run in the fifth. The Yankees win, 5-3, but not before a magnificently scary thunderstorm causes a 57-minute rain delay.

The stadium is still quiet and dry as we chat about Granderson's upbringing and how he intuitively knew he'd be one of those points of light illuminating the country. His parents Curtis Sr., and Mary were educators in Lynwood, a suburb of Chicago. Granderson remembers them forever organizing different fundraisers, selling tickets for this charity or that, and encouraging people to become active in their community.

"I didn't really ask questions because they were always just doing it. I never knew any other way," says Granderson, who held his first job at age 14, cleaning up local parks.

From grade school through college, his parents always displayed Granderson's report card on the refrigerator. (Granderson has a business degree from the University of Illinois-Chicago). "Or a good assignment he might have done," Mary says in a phone interview. "I'd tell my students about honoring his work, and then a lot of their parents started telling me they began doing it. It's beautiful when you can pass something on. We managed to be where we were because we had people behind the scenes helping us. As a tribute to them, we give back."

Role models beget role models. Mary, who taught biology and chemistry for 27 years, and Curtis Sr., who taught physical education for 35 years, happened to sit next to John Fuller, founder of Full Athlete Marketing, at a game a few years ago. Fuller says the athletes he represents almost always have the same question: How can they get endorsements? It was different when Fuller was introduced to Granderson.

"I'd like to work with schools in Detroit. Can you help me with that?" Fuller recalls Granderson asking.

Granderson isn't sure why this request seems odd. Ask him what he had in mind and the expression on his face is the same as if I questioned why he doesn't showboat around the bases. "With Detroit being in the situation where it is economically, and the literacy rate at 50 percent amongst all people there, adults and kids, what better place to try to help out, especially considering education was so important to my family," he says.

Lacy, the friend from the party of 18, says Granderson just can't help sharing his blessings. "He's very wise, always has been. Funny and wise," says Lacy, who was Granderson's plus-one when Granderson went with other major league representatives on an ambassador baseball trip to Africa. "We're always telling him, 'Stop. You don't have to pay for everything. We can buy dinner.' But he cherishes these moments."

Does Granderson worry about his good deeds interfering with the career that enables him to perform those good deeds? Does he fear he might buckle under the burden of being a role model? "I'm good at discipline and time management. I like to plan stuff. I was the point guy back in high school, planning homecoming and prom, stuff like that. Everything from where we're going to how we're getting there," he says.

"And as far as being a role model and doing things right, that's something I gladly take on."

Granderson drove with his parents from St. Louis to Chicago late Tuesday night following the All-Star Game, just the three of them in the car for nearly five hours, in pouring rain. Granderson was chatty at first, talking about the game, the pregame ceremony honoring volunteers, and of course, the appearance of that other community organizer from Chicago, President Obama.

"But mostly he slept," Mary says of her son. Leyland, for one, will be happy to hear that.