An Interview with John C. Gant, father of Atlanta Braves pitcher John Gant

John Gant has been the talk of the team since he was acquired last July and was absolutely dominating in Mississippi to close out the year. He then came to spring training and won a spot in the opening day bullpen, setting the internet ablaze with his unusual windup. His father agreed to talk with Tomahawk Take about the journey to the major leagues from a parent’s perspective.

Benjamin Chase: John was born in Savannah and graduated from high school in Florida. Which major league team did he follow growing up?

John C. Gant: We have always been Braves fans. He started receiving Braves clothes and hats when he was born! Whenever he was asked as a kid what he was going to be when he grew up, his answer was always that he was going to play baseball for the Atlanta Braves. He never just said baseball, he always said he would play for the Braves. His favorite player was Javy Lopez and he wore #8 through high school.

BC: John has taken things one step at a time in the minor leagues. How many of the games were you able to be there for during his minor league career?

After he was drafted, the Mets waited to sign him late on purpose. He was drafted in the 21st round but was paid as if it was the 4th or 5th round. I assume for negotiation reasons that they did not want to disclose that early on. My point to that is he did not start playing until very late in that season as he only appeared in 4 games in the Florida GCL league. We went to his very first game. It was against the Cardinals GCL team and as soon as he threw his 1st pitch in the bottom of the 1st it began to pour down rain. Not regular rain, this was a frog strangler! And, they kept playing. We had no jackets or umbrellas and were stuck with him. As you can imagine he could not grip the ball very well and had some control issues. To make a long story short, in that 1st inning he gave up a 3 run opposite field HR. I remember knowing it was a HR right off the bat and as soon as it cleared the fence I remember my wife and I just looking at each other stunned in amazement as we were not used to that at all. Those 1st outings were tough but he churned through them.

He went to Kingsport, TN the next season, and we only got to see 2 games. That was very hard as we were used to seeing him every time. He then went to Brooklyn and we only got to see him one weekend. He had a lot of success in Brooklyn and that was a great weekend for us. He was a southern boy riding the subway wearing cowboy boots and jeans!

He then went to Savannah of all places, which was of course the hometown for the whole family. Now when I say the whole family I mean big numbers. My wife Michelle and I were both 4th generation Savannah residents that had never lived anywhere else at the time. Michelle has a large family and they are still there. We were also blessed with numerous friends and business contacts there as well. Their support for him that season was incredible. It would be a normal occurrence for him to have over 60 people there to see him pitch every night. The local radio stations would always have him on and for opening night they interviewed our family and the stands were packed. It’s a 5 hour drive from our home so we were able to attend numerous home games to see him that season. It was a blast!

He then skipped Hi-A Florida and while I was glad for him, we were a little disappointed we weren’t going to see him a lot that season. I will note that it was at this time I started subscribing to MLB.tv which has a minor league package, milb.tv. That helped our sanity a great deal! We didn’t get to see all of NY games but when he was traded to the Braves and was put in Mississippi, I think we saw every start on TV. That was fun to watch.