Minor League Memories: The Ken Griffey, Sr. interview (August 2011)
Welcome to the Big Red Machine
Originally published August 10, 2011
For background and context into what this is, read this explainer
The Bakersfield Blaze underwent some big changes this offseason. The main shift was an affiliation switch, from Texas to Cincinnati. As the affiliation changed hands, Reds prospects gained a new leader when Ken Griffey, Sr. accepted the Blaze’s vacant managerial position.
Griffey played 19 seasons in Major League Baseball before he became a coach, first as a roving hitting instructor for Seattle. He also worked as a hitting coach for the Mariners and the Rockies at the Major League level.
This season is Griffey’s first at the helm of any team in pro ball and like his players, he’s learning with the job. “Here in the minor leagues you help with the hitting,” he said. “You talk with the pitching coach on how the [pitchers] are doing. You’re coaching third base so you have to understand all the offensive and defensive plays.”
Griffey sees coaching for development and coaching to win as two sides of the same coin. “If we’re in a situation to win the game, I’m going to manage to win,” he said. “The development part comes as you go. Now you’re putting kids in situations where you know they may be in the future in the big leagues.”
He has seen the future develop before his eyes, not just in his son Ken, Jr., but in the young players he scouted as a special assistant for Cincinnati in the early 2000s. His job required him to watch players at every level of baseball and report back to the general manager. “I went to see [Tampa shortstop] B.J. Upton when he was in high school,” Griffey said of one assignment he had at that job. “At that time I thought he was a better pitcher than a shortstop, because I hadn’t seen him play shortstop.”
Griffey uses his experiences as a young player to impart lessons to his Blaze players, like telling funny stories from his career to keep the kids engaged. “I spent five years in the minor leagues and I went through every level these kids are going through,” he said. “If something funny happened out on the field I laughed. That keeps you loose.”
Now all eyes are on him as the manager. It’s a departure from his days on the Big Red Machine, the powerhouse Reds teams of the 1970s. Griffey was the young guy on a roster full of stars and dominating personalities like Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, and Joe Morgan. “I was always low key in the major leagues,” he said. “I was a younger guy on the club so I kept a low profile and I did my job. Here as a manager, I have to talk all the time.”
Where are they now?
Griffey is a lifetime .296 hitter over 19 seasons in MLB and won two World Series titles with the Cincinnati Reds in 1975 and 1976. While he wasn’t the breakout star on a team loaded with superstar talent, Griffey was a reliable hitter in the regular season and the playoffs. He collected 18 hits with 11 RBIs and eight stolen bases in 20 total postseason games.
He stayed with the Reds through the 1981 season when he was traded to the New York Yankees where he played four seasons, then bounced around for the next few years between Atlanta and back to the Reds. He was released in the summer of 1990 and while he did not appear on the Reds postseason roster, the team gave him a third World Series ring after the Reds swept the Oakland Athletics 4–0 in the Fall Classic.
Griffey signed with the Seattle Mariners after the Reds released him in 1990. He set a record that has yet to be touched again when Ken Sr. and Ken Jr. became teammates in the same outfield — the first father and son to be teammates in Major League Baseball. In the Margins will examine other familial bonds in MLB, especially families that played together during their careers.
Usually we go more in depth in Where Are They Now? Because a lot of the players I spoke to didn’t make it to MLB, or had very short careers if they did. With someone like Ken Griffey, Sr., his life and achievements are well known. If you’d like to learn more about Griffey’s experiences you can get it directly from the source in his autobiography Big Red: Baseball, Fatherhood, and My Life in the Big Red Machine.
No Stupid Joke of the Week, unfortunately. According to the bylaws of Halloween, I’m due for a trick because I did not deliver a treat.
You likely noticed that we didn’t publish In the Margins for the previous entry about San Francisco Giants second baseman Joe Panik. We’re trying something new this month. In the Margins will return after Halloween with the follow-ups to each of the October stories. For now, please enjoy these stories of postseason heroes before and after their glory days.
Next week
Another Giants hero, and somehow another Reds connection. 2012 was a weird and awesome year.
Related entries in this series
Joe Panik: Baseball is so mental
George Springer: Pearls of wisdom
James Jones: The once and future pitcher
