And I’ll tell you why: I knew his grandmother.

Here’s the story.

After Sunday service at the local Unitarian Universalist Society in the fall of 2011, I was approached by a woman somewhat older than I who knew of my baseball interest and told me cheerfully, “my grandson is going to play in the Major Leagues.”

Her nametag read “Ginsy Frost.”

I restrained my skepticism (“She has a baseball playing grandson in high school and she thinks he’ll play in the big leagues. Right.”) and had the presence of mind to ask his name.

At home, later that day, I googled the name she provided, “Lucas Giolito,” and discovered her confidence in his future was well-placed.

In his senior year of high school, Ginsy’s grandson, a pitcher, was considered by many the best baseball prospect in the country, likely going first in the 2012 MLB amateur draft. He was clocked in high school throwing the ball 100 miles an hour.

He didn’t go first in the draft that spring. An elbow injury in his senior year, later requiring surgery, dropped him to no. 16 in the first round where he was selected by the Washington Nationals, who provided him with a bonus of $3 million as an inducement to pass up a baseball scholarship to UCLA.

He lost the 2012 season to Tommy John surgery, then progressed smoothly through the Nats’ minor league system, before starting a game for the Nationals on June 16, 2016, at age 21, realizing Ginsy’s forecast five years before.

Now, 31, Lucas Giolito is no longer a prodigy, having played nine Major League seasons with five teams. Another (less serious) elbow surgery kept him out all of last season, his first with the Red Sox.

LUCAS GIOLITO AND his mom, Lindsay Frost, stand for a photo after she threw out the first pitch to her son at a White Sox game on Mother’s Day 2020. She had an extensive career in movies and on television and is now an acclaimed artist. Photo courtesy of MLB.com

He’s a veteran, a solid major league pitcher with a career won/loss record of 73-66, 4.30 earned run average, and some genuine highlights: he was selected to the American League All-Star team in 2019 and pitched a no-hitter for the White Sox in 2020.

Though he’s 6 feet-6 inches, 275 pounds, Giolito no longer throws 100 mph and blows hitters away with his fastball. In fact, his best pitch, his strikeout pitch, is a change-up at about 81-83 mph. He gets batters out with deception, misdirection, guile, keeping hitters off balance by changing speeds and planes.

Red Sox radio announcer Will Flemming recently described his changeup as “like having a parachute attached to it,” the ball appearing to slow down, dropping as it gets to the plate.

He has been a veteran presence in a youthful starting rotation for the Red Sox and crucial to the team’s fortunes this season with a 10-4 won/loss record and 3.30 ERA. And he certainly appears to be having good time:

“The magic of Fenway, man,” he told Sports Illustrated. “Especially with where we’re at, in a playoff race. This is the most fun I’ve ever had playing baseball in the MLB. Every single game matters.”

• • • • •

OK, that’s the baseball discussion for why he’s my favorite player. Now, here are the “Ginsy” reasons that her grandson is my favorite player: the Middlebury connection.

Lucas Giolito is the scion of a remarkably creative family of actors, writers, and artists. The patriarch (on his mother’s side anyway) is Warren Frost, his grandfather. Warren grew up in Essex Junction, Vt., enlisted in the Navy at 17, and served aboard a destroyer escort in the Normandy landings in World War II, before attending Middlebury College.

In his first year at Middlebury, he met Mary Virginia (Ginsy) Calhoun in the drama group, the Players. Both devoted thespians, their theatrical performances, solo and together, were warmly reviewed in The Campus (newspaper) for the next four years. They wed before they graduated in 1950 and were married for 68 years.

Warren Frost had a long and varied career in the dramatic arts and he and Ginsy lived at various times in New York, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis. He earned a Ph.D. and taught for 20 years at the University of Minnesota, and was, according to his Showtime obituary, “a fixture in the Twin Cities professional theater scene.”

He wrote his own plays and adapted others. For a time, he toured the Midwest performing a one-man show about Mark Twain. Late in his career, Warren became well-known for recurring roles in three popular television series, “Twin Peaks,” “Matlock,” and “Seinfeld” (as the father of George’s fated fiancé Susan).

WARREN FROST, MIDDLEBURY College Class of 1950 and grandfather of current Red Sox pitcher Lucas Giolito, appears onstage at Middlebury in 1949 as “Garcin,” the protagonist in Jean-Paul Sartre’s “No Exit.” Frost was president of the college drama club and had a successful career in the entertainment industry.

Warren appeared as Doc Hayward in all 30 episodes of “Twin Peaks,” a show his son Mark co-created with David Lynch. “You have to remember something about the arts,” he told Burlington Free Press reporter Brent Hallenback in 2014, “the most important thing an actor can have is nepotism.”

Warren and Ginsy had three remarkable children — novelist, television screenwriter, and producer Mark, actor/artist Lindsay, and writer Scott.

In addition to his TV work, Mark Frost has written nine novels and four non-fiction sports books, three about golf and another that all Red Sox fans should read, an account of the dramatic Carleton Fisk after-midnight foul pole homer game, “Game Six: Cincinnati, Boston, and the ’75 World Series.”

Lucas Giolito’s mother is Lindsay Frost (she and actor Rick Giolito were married in 1988) and she has had a successful TV and film career, with nearly 50 film and television credits on her IMDb (Internet Movie Data Base) list from 1983 to 2004. She is now an artist, whose work includes striking baseball paintings.

Lucas contends he did not inherit the acting gene: “It was never for me. I loved baseball since I was a little kid playing T-ball. But I do like to think I’m a creative person.” He remembers “as a kid, I used to run lines with my mom when she had auditions. I learned a lot from my mom growing up.”

To honor his grandfather, Lucas has used the Seinfeld theme as his warmup music. When Warren died, Lucas wrote on social media, “Wish I could have spent more time with Gramps. A truly great man.”

Warren and Ginsy Frost returned in retirement to Vermont from Los Angeles, living in Cornwall from 1998 to 2013 when they moved to East View at Middlebury. Warren passed away in February 2017, at 91. After his death, Ginsy moved to Troy, N.Y., where she grew up, to be near two of their children. She died at 92 in 2022.

So there are the baseball and personal reasons I root for Lucas Giolito. And if you are a Red Sox fan, or just like baseball and live here in Vermont, Red Sox country, do join me.

Go Sox!

Karl Lindholm, Ph.D., is the Emeritus Dean of Advising and Assistant Professor of American Studies (retired) at Middlebury College. Contact him at [email protected].