Quote Originally Posted by The Federalist Engineer View Post
So, the Grisham story that I have understood is that John’s son Ty Grisham wanted to play for MSU in around the 2000-2001 season. The kid was not a great prospect and McMahon did not want to entertain Ty even as a walk-on candidate. Maybe it was more, maybe Grisham wanted Ty on the 35 man-roster.

This made John Grisham very sour with MSU. At the same time, the moribund baseball program at UVA is willing to have Ty on the team. UVA in 2000 almost did not have any program, so why not have Ty on the team.

They accepted Ty as both a walk-on and into the 35-man-roster. In his 4 years at UVA, Ty got 12 at-bats in mop-up duty. Ty is very proud of being a pity case player and has “ball player” status listed in his on-line bio. In fairness to MSU it should read, “my dad paid for me to be a make-believe baseball player in college.”

In gratitude for Ty being on the team. John Grisham gave $3M dollars for a UVA stadium project and injected new life into the UVA program. Ty left UVA baseball in 2003 and Brian O’Conner came to town in 2004. The rest is history.

The punch-line is that Pat McMahan and MSU should have given “Fredo” Grisham a break, it would have kept a very influential alumnus happy.
especially since he was willing to walk on. I don't know why I remember Grisham's son ending up being a good player for UVA. thanks for clearing that part up for me.