Kevin John Gryboski (born November 15, 1973) is an American former

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

and current head coach of Wilkes University's baseball team.

Career

High school career

Bishop Hoban High School Bishop Hoban High School was a Roman Catholic high school of the Diocese of Scranton, located in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The school was founded in 1971, and the new building opened in 1972 after repairs due to the catastrophic flooding cau ...

in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Gryboski was a two-sport star in both

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

. In baseball, he was an All-Conference All-Star pick.

College career

Gryboski pitched for

Wilkes University Wilkes University is a private university in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. It has over 2,200 undergraduates and over 2,200 graduate students (both full and part-time). Wilkes was founded in 1933 as a satellite campus of Bucknell University, and bec ...

Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania Wilkes-Barre ( or ) is a city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, Luzerne County. Located at the center of the Wyoming Valley in Northeastern Pennsylvania, it had a population of 44,328 in th ...

Professional career

Gryboski was selected by the

Seattle Mariners The Seattle Mariners are an American professional baseball team based in Seattle. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League West, West division. The team joined the American League ...

in the 16th round of the

1995 Major League Baseball draft First round selections The following are the first round picks in the 1995 Major League Baseball draft. ''*'' Did not sign Background Outfielder Darin Erstad of the University of Nebraska was the first pick in the 1995 Rule 4 Draft. Erstad ...

. Gryboski, a

right-handed In human biology, handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand, known as the dominant hand, due to it being stronger, faster or more dextrous. The other hand, comparatively often the weaker, less dextrous or simply less subjecti ...

pitcher, was acquired by the

Atlanta Braves The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball team based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Braves compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) National League East, East division. The Braves ...

in January and traded to the Texas Rangers in July for minor league pitcher Matt Lorenzo. Gryboski was known as "Groundball" Gryboski while playing with the Braves; this came from his ability to get batters to ground into

double play In baseball and softball, a double play (denoted as DP in baseball statistics) is the act of making two outs during the same continuous play. Double plays can occur any time there is at least one baserunner and fewer than two outs. In Major Leag ...

s. He was once suspended by the Texas Rangers for "inappropriate actions".

Coaching

In 2018, Gryboski became of head coach of the Wilkes University Colonels baseball team.

Personal life

Along with pitching with the Wilkes Colonels, Gryboski also helps every year with the Wilkes baseball clinic for 6-12 year olds, where he teaches them the fundamentals of pitching. Gryboski is married to Leah and they have two children: KJ and Kaylee.

References

External links

Kevin Gryboski
at Baseball Almanac
Kevin Gryboski - San Francisco Giants - MLB - Yahoo! Sports
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gryboski, Kevin 1973 births Living people Major League Baseball pitchers Baseball players from Pennsylvania Atlanta Braves players Sportspeople from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania Texas Rangers players Washington Nationals players Everett AquaSox players Wisconsin Timber Rattlers players Lancaster JetHawks players Orlando Rays players New Haven Ravens players Tacoma Rainiers players Macon Braves players Richmond Braves players Rome Braves players Oklahoma RedHawks players New Orleans Zephyrs players Gulf Coast Pirates players Indianapolis Indians players Fresno Grizzlies players Wilkes Colonels baseball players American people of Polish descent