Baseball coach put people first
Grasso announces he will retire after 45 years with Becahi
When Bethlehem Catholic played its first game in the St. Luke’s High School Baseball Tournament last week, Mike Grasso was there as usual. But it was not in the role he’s accustomed to. “It was the first time in 45 years that I was on the other side of the fence and it was actually pretty hard for me to be there as just a fan and not coach,” he said.
That’s because Grasso loves Bethlehem Catholic, baseball and coaching kids.
After 45 years involved in some capacity at the school and 34 as head coach, Grasso was set to say goodbye during the 2020 season after announcing his retirement. He was looking forward to one last go-around with his colleagues across the area before the coronavirus pandemic brought everything to a halt.
When area coaches began planning the St. Luke’s Lehigh Valley High School Baseball Tournament that concludes Sunday and Monday at Coca-Cola Park, they had a few objectives.
One was to give the seniors who missed out on their final scholastic seasons one more chance to play for their high schools and with their friends.
Another was to salute Grasso, who has become
“He’s probably the nicest human being I’ve ever met in my life. In the aspect of baseball, he’s a competitor and wants to win. But he was just great for kids.” — Easton pitching coach Greg Hess, on former athletic director Mike Grasso
one of the most beloved figures in local sports. He will get that salute during a ceremony before Monday’s tournament championship game.
“He’s probably the nicest human being I’ve ever met in my life,” Easton pitching coach Greg Hess said. “In the aspect of baseball, he’s a competitor and wants to win. But he was just great for kids.”
Hess said the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference is the best league in Pennsylvania and added: “We wouldn’t be as good as we are without Mike Grasso because of the way he mentors young coaches.”
Hess and Easton head coach Carm LaDuca both said they learned a lot about baseball, and perhaps more importantly, people skills from Grasso.
“He always treated the opposing teams with respect,” LaDuca said. “He’s just a good person.”
“He didn’t know Carm and me until we started coaching, but every time we faced him he’d ask me about our kids and our wives,” Hess said. “He even remembered the colleges the kids are going to. He cared about people. I’d get a phone call from him in the middle of winter just to ask how I was doing.”
Easton and Bethlehem Catholic are bitter rivals in most sports, but friendships transcend rivalries when it comes to Grasso.
Another coach from a rival school, Central Catholic’s Mike Brosious, shared the same sentiments as Hess and LaDuca.
“He’s a class act and I’m sure you hear that whenever you ask somebody about Mike,” Brosious said. “I’ve never seen him get out of hand. I’ve never seen him lose his cool. He’s a great guy to talk to before games. I feel like I was blessed by the Pope after I talked to him.”
Grasso is a man of deep faith who once had an audience with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican. His religion and family have always been the most important things in his life, but baseball and developing students into productive adults were never too far behind on his priority list.
“We always tried to teach kids skills but we’ve also tried to teach them how to deal with the battles of life,” he said. “In baseball, you’re going to make an error or you’re going to strike out. In life, you’re going to make mistakes. It’s what you do afterward. Life is full of ups and downs. You learn to how to get back up after you get knocked down. Those are the kinds of things I’ve tried to impress upon my players.”
Grasso’s teams won more than 380 games, two league and four District 11 championships. In 1996 and 2007, his teams reached the state semifinals. His son, Michael J., was on a league championship team in the 1990s, one of his proudest moments.
But Grasso treasures all of his children, a roster that includes Maria, Katie and Teresa, who was a key member of Bethlehem Catholic’s Lehigh Valley
Conference championship tennis team in 2006 and later played collegiate tennis at West Chester.
Now he’s busy keeping track of 11 grandchildren, all under the age of 13.
Asked for the greatest influences in his life, Grasso said God and his wife, Kathy. They’ve been married 45 years.
“It’s easy to remember. … I am married 45 years, I coached 45 years and taught for 45 years,” he said.
Grasso grew up in Girardville, a borough in Schuylkill County. He played basketball and baseball at Shenandoah Catholic, which merged with Immaculate Heart Academy to create Cardinal Brennan in 1968. Grasso graduated from Cardinal Brennan in 1969 and then attended Lehigh Carbon Community College for a year before transferring to East Stroudsburg University.
He graduated from ESU in 1974 and started coaching at Becahi the same year. He began teaching in the Allentown Diocese, first working at Notre Dame and St. Anne’s elementary schools in Bethlehem.
In addition to baseball, Grasso was also a football assistant and a head soccer coach at Becahi and served the school in several other capacities, including as athletic director and dean of students in addition to teaching phys ed and driver training.
To many, he is Bethlehem Catholic.
“He is a Bethlehem Catholic icon,” Golden Hawks athletic director Chris Domyan said. “Although we’re happy for him in his retirement, we’re going to miss him greatly. Everything he did was from a basis of love and kindness and mentorship. Every person he came in contact with he impacted in a positive way.”
Grasso said he has some health issues that led to his retirement. Everyone who knows him wishes him well.
No matter what happens, Grasso feels blessed to have been in a position to affect so many lives. He said he couldn’t list people who were special to him, because the list would be endless.
That’s why he wanted the chance to say goodbye before COVID-19 struck. Even there, Grasso believes God had a plan.
“You know I get very emotional and it would have been so hard for me to say goodbye to people on the baseball field this spring,” he said. “It may have been too much for me. I would have been heartbroken, so maybe it was better that it turned out the way it did.”
Grasso will never forget all of the friends he made on the diamond, whether they were opposing players, coaches, athletic directors, umpires, groundskeepers or media. They will never forget him either.
“I loved being around people,” he said. “I loved seeing everybody. Every game was like my birthday. I was truly blessed to find a profession so meaningful and so rewarding. I am grateful to have received such great support from people. I know it was my time to go, but I am going to miss it.”