Kentucky Baseball shortstop Grant Smith has been one of the unsung heroes for the Cats over their two-year journey to national relevance. While sporting one of the best gloves in the country, he has been snubbed TWICE from the SEC All-Defense Team in both 2023 and 2024. Quite the travesty.
The 2023 Rawlings Gold Glove Runner-Up continued to play like one of the best defensive players in the country on Sunday, making two outstanding plays to hold Indiana State scoreless. One was named the No. 1 play on SportsCenter‘s Top 10 plays of the day.
“I think we all felt it from day one, just how close the guys started to become and how much we were pulling for each other,” Smith said postgame. “There’s definitely uncommon selflessness about this team, much like last year’s team. And I think that’s why we were both able to be successful. But just the depth the team has, the commitment to winning this team has, I think will go — I think it’s paid off pretty well.”
However, Grant’s impact expands as far off the field as it does on the field.
Following Kentucky’s win over Indiana State on Sunday night, head coach Nick Mingione got emotional telling a story about Grant Smith and his interactions with a younger boy, also named Grant.
“I want to tell you a story about Grant. He shows up to my son’s school to read to little kids. And one of the people who works at the school says, ‘Hey, my son is a huge baseball fan’. What’s his name? ‘Grant’. And she says, ‘Hey, he might be a little shy. Can you maybe sign something for him?’
“And Grant’s, like, ‘Does he go to school here?’ She goes, ‘Yeah’. He’s like, ‘Let’s go find him’.” So Grant seeks this little boy out and signs something for him and just talks to him. Fast-forward a couple of weeks later, that boy shows up to our game. And Grant’s, like, ‘Hey, Grant, how are you?’ And the kid is just baffled that Grant remembered his name.”
As Mingione finished telling the story, he began to get teary-eyed.
“And then you watch what he does on the field today,” he said. “It’s truly amazing. He’s an amazing person, and he deserves every bit of success he gets.”
In two seasons at Kentucky since transferring from Incarnate Word, Smith boasts a .271 batting average with 11 doubles, 13 home runs, and 64 RBI. He has also made just six errors in 108 games at shortstop.
Going up and down the lineup, there are many stories like Grant’s that are likely to surface over the next week or so. These Cats are just a great group of guys that are really easy to cheer for.
Kentucky will host the winner of the Corvallis Regional, either Oregon State or UC-Irvine, in next week’s Lexington Super Regional. Dates and times will be revealed at a later date.
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