Grimm does a balancing act while in camp

He pitches after birth of his son near Nashville

PHOENIX – By the nature of their profession, baseball players often are forced to balance their jobs with their family lives.

Right-hander Justin Grimm had a difficult decision Wednesday: Stay in the Milwaukee Brewers’ spring camp and pitch in an exhibition game against the Chicago White Sox, or be back home in Nashville when wife Gina delivered their second child.

With his wife’s blessing, Grimm remained in camp and pitched.

“It’s something that me and her had discussed a month ago,” said Grimm, who is trying to win a job in the bullpen as a non-roster invitee to camp. “It wasn’t like, a game-time decision of ‘should I go back’ or ‘should I not?’ We had already discussed it and been through it.

“We did the birth via FaceTime. It was pretty cool. Technology is amazing sometimes. It was a good experience.”

Grimm received a text from his wife at 4 a.m. that the birth was expected to take place about 6:15 a.m. She delivered a son they named Jaxon, joining older brother Austin, only 21 months old.

“At that point, I was awake and it was like, ‘Let’s go to the field,’ ” said Grimm, who went one inning against Chicago, allowing one hit, one walk and a run with two strikeouts. “You know, she’s a trooper. She’s recovering well. The baby is good. Life is good.”

An extra, scary element was added to the situation when a deadly tornado hit Nashville overnight Tuesday, killing several people and leaving behind a wake of destruction. Grimm said the tornado went north of his home, which is in the suburb of Brentwood.

“We were very fortunate; a lot of people weren’t very fortunate,” Grimm said. “I just pray for those people. I actually called (his wife) in the middle of the night. I happened to get a ‘ding’ on my phone that woke me up. I called her and she wasn’t answering, and I got a text the next morning, like, ‘Well, it must not have been that bad (where they live). I slept through everything.’

“She went to the ER for some headaches, and after doing some tests they were like, ‘Are you ready to have this baby?’ It happened really fast.”

Asked how difficult it was to choose baseball over birth, Grimm said, “I was able to make it to the birth of my first son, but like I said, it has nothing to do with trying to go make money, trying to make the team. It was something we had talked about a month ago. Stick to the plan.

“I’m just grateful everything went smoothly and well, and I’m not getting a call to go back to Nashville. That’s one positive way to look at it. I’ll stick it out here for now and I’ll see them in a few weeks. Life’s good. Yesterday was good because it was just a challenge to go out and pitch with a clear mind. You’ve got a lot of things going on off the field, which is the reality of what we do.

“It was good to take that out there with me. Not push it off to the side, but just focus for 20 minutes.”

Manager Craig Counsell said he was not aware of the birth until informed by pitching coach Chris Hook as Grimm entered the game.

“We were talking about it this morning and laughing about it,” said Counsell, who thought Grimm’s stuff was “a notch up” in his outing. “I want to meet his wife, I know that, because he told some great stories about it.

“It’s not like it sneaked up on him. He was well aware it would fall in this time frame. They talked about it and made a decision, and you respect that.”