Ken Griffey Jr. discusses the origin of his sweet swing, his SWINGMAN brand with Nike, and his thoughts on parenting & #BlackLivesMatter
June 16, 2020 — Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. joins Brian Berger on Sports Business Radio.
BRIAN: I really appreciate you making the time. I wanna start out, we’ve got a very close, mutual friend, kind of the O.G. at Nike, Lynn Merritt. He’s worked with you, LeBron James, Bo Jackson, Scottie Pippen, and I know you’ve had a very special relationship with Nike over the course of your career but tell me about that first meeting with Lynn. How old were you and how did you guys meet for the first time?
KEN: He was doing his due diligence about finding the baseball player that was gonna take Nike to another level as far as baseball wide. And so he visited Frank Thomas, David Justice and a couple other guys and got to me and ended up choosing me. He says it’s because of my wife, but I say differently.
Over the years him being such a big influence on my life on and off the field, having a dad but you know they always say that “It takes a village to raise a child,” he’s part of that village. The way that he expresses things, the way he says things. Now we may not agree on everything all the time, but the Merritts are the god parents to my kids and it’s a relationship that even though it started as business has grown to be much much more. We still call each other trying to figure out what are we doing, how’s everybody doing, especially in the last three and a half months. What’s been going on in the country and with the country. So we’ve had a lot of time to sit back and reminisce, and he’ll tell stories that I think he fabricated a lot, because my Dad fabricates some stories. No, but he’s one of the guys that, like I said when he’s on your team he’s on your team it’s tough to get him off and I really appreciate everything that he’s done for me and also my family.
“It takes a village to raise a child,”— he’s part of that village.
BRIAN: Yeah he keeps it real too doesn’t he?
KEN: Yeah sometimes that’s the problem. You don’t wanna hear that, especially early on in my career, a little stubborn. Being a 19-year-old, 20-year-old, 19, 20, 21 you’re like “This is the way that baseball works,” and him coming from a different sport, football and now basketball, having the learning curve of how baseball works, cause he’s like “Hey we’re doing this!” and I go “We can’t do that just yet!” but I did as much as I could. The breaking of probably all the rules in baseball, the mock turtle neck with the Nike logo, how big my number was. I just kept saying “I want it bigger, bigger,” and they took some shots over the years, not so much from Major League Baseball but from other companies that were like “How come Ken Griffey Jr. can do it?” and they were like “Hey, we don’t have nothing to do with that, he just keep telling us what to do.” But like I said he’s one of those guys that’s good for me, my family and really pushed the envelope at Nike as far as what athletes want and need.
BRIAN: The birth of the SWINGMAN brand, I mean it’s become one of the most successful brands that Nike’s ever had. I love the logo that’s part of your line, but I’ve talked to athletes over the years and some of them are real involved with their product and what it looks like and the design and they want to be involved from A-Z with the process, other people are like “Well just show me the finished product. Where were you in that spectrum?
KEN: I wanna go from start, because you can’t make changes at the end. And I don’t wanna be that guy that’s like “Yeah I love the shoe, but.” So we try to nip things in the bud. I mean Tracy Teague has done a great job designing it and I think that when they — they come to your house, they see what you have, how do you live, they check out your cars, look at your hobbies, and then they go back and they brainstorm about “What can we put in the shoe that reminds us of him?” So when designing this shoe, it was like, I have a lot of carbon fiber on my car, that’s one of the things about me. If you look at over the years there’s about four or five shoes that have carbon fiber in it. And it’s just the way I am. I want everything low profile and fast. So that’s the way they designed the shoe. Even though I wanted a three quarter, they made it a low three quarter and so I was able to play and felt comfortable in the shoe, and never really had to change anything because I felt that they knew me so well that when they came back with something it was going to be good.
BRIAN: What was your favorite Griffey SWINGMAN product? Like I love the Nike Air Griffey Max One, the original. What about you? It’s probably hard to pick but is there one that stood out to you?
KEN: One. It’s always your first, even though my kids think that my second child is my favorite, which is my daughter. My boys are like “Hey, we know which one’s your favorite. She gets everything,” I’m like “Don’t yall get everything?” they’re like “No we don’t get nothing,” I’m like “Okay.” I guess it’s the word “Daddy” that comes out of her mouth, cause my kids “Hey pops,” I’ll be like “Yo,” you know, my boys. No it’s always the first. There’s so many things — first car, first house, first day in the big leagues. Those days, you remember for the rest of your life.
BRIAN: In 1999 Nike bestowed an honor on you that’s really reserved for the most elite of an athlete. They gave you your own building on the campus of Nike World Headquarters. I’ve been to Nike many times because I’m based in Oregon, I’ve seen your building. My friends have told me about the day of that dedication, and I guess they had some high schoolers throwing you BP and you were just hitting bombs off of some of the Nike buildings there. What was that day like for you, to get your own building at Nike World Headquarters?
KEN: It was quite surreal. You hear about it and you’re like “Ok, but am I really getting this?” To have the folks at Nike say that I’m worthy of having a building with the other athletes they have under their umbrella, it’s pretty special. It’s wild because when I got there it was still not real. It got real real quick when I started hitting balls off buildings, but for the most part that whole day I was like “I can’t believe this is happening,” because you don’t — my thing is when people go out of their way to do something for you it means a lot. And that goes from picking from the All-Star Game, that they go in there and take that little pamphlet and poke your name out, to online, saying “Hey I want to see this guy play,” to at the time they were doing Gas Station — you could pick the names while you were pumping gas. To me that’s special, and I don’t take those things lightly, and for Nike to say “Hey we want you to have your own building, and this is going to be on the campus forever,” it means a lot.
BRIAN: Yeah, your SWINGMAN brand, so again I love the logo. Ken I’ve always wanted to ask you this question. Most people agree, at least in my lifetime, I wasn’t alive for Ted Williams or Willie Mays or anyone like that. You have the sweetest swing ever. Where is the origin of that swing, is that something that you were just born with and that’s your natural swing or were there people that you grew up when you were playing baseball as a kid, and you took a little bit of this and a little bit of that from their swing and then it became your swing?
KEN: No, the only person that I wanted to be like was my Dad, and so if you look at early on I was hunched over like him, even though I’m a little taller so I didn’t hunch as much as he did, but that’s the only person I wanted to be like, and eventually I think after year two or three I stood up a little taller just messing around in BP and I started hitting the ball like 40 feet further. And I was like “Well I’m gonna just work on this one right here.” But that was mainly it. If you look at hitters, if you’re hunched over there’s certain pitches that you can reach that when you’re standing up you can’t reach, so you can go from Rod Carew, Pete Rose, even Tony Gwyn. And if you look at guys who were more straight up have a little bit more power. And then there’s those guys that are in between that have power and have great coverage, so that was like — that was it. I stood up one day and was like “Oh yeah, I’m hitting the ball 40 feet further to left field, I’m gonna keep this one,” and just continued to work on it for the next 19 years.
BRIAN: Yeah well, a thing of beauty and I think something that most people agree on is just, one of the greatest things in sports history. I wanna talk to you a little bit about your investment in Players TV. There’s a lot of athletes now that are interested in creating their own content and there’s pieces of content that are important for them to have made. Players TV, Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, Vernon Davis, others. You’re the first baseball investor, what led you to wanna invest and be apart of Players TV?
KEN: Well, I’ve been hit on throughout the years to do a reality TV Show, and I kept saying no because I want my kids to grow up as normal as possible. What people have to understand is their normal may not be somebody else’s normal, and vice versa. I have three great kids who give the shirt off their back. There’s plenty of times where I’m like “You can’t just give that away. That is your’s,” and they’re like “Yeah but he needs it more, he doesn’t have this.” And when they start saying it like that I’m like “Alright.” They all graduated from Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando, which is a predominantly middle-lower class public school and the football team, when I talk to the kids I say “Your coaches beg, ball and steal to get the things that you have,” and Coach Wells has done a great job of getting the things that he needs, and he still needs some help. And so I sit there and I’m like “Whatever you need,” so some of these guys, you know, whether it be feeding them because they don’t have a budget for food. 150 sandwiches a day, it’s tough. So I try to help them out as much as possible.
But the TV part is as they grew up, now that they’re — my youngest is gonna be a freshman in college, I can start doing things that I’ve always wanted to do, to show a different side of not only me, but other people. What do we do in our family life that people never see? Which is, for me, I like to go fishing, I like to go hunting, I fly a plane, so I do a lot of things — I scuba dive. But people don’t get to see any of that because over the years I’m like “You know what? I’m going to see my kid play, I gotta get here, I gotta fly.”
I can start doing things that I’ve always wanted to do, to show a different side of not only me, but other people. What do we do in our family life that people never see?
But our fishing part is absolutely one of the funniest things. Fishing and hunting are two of the biggest things because I take my dad hunting so it’s two generations. So this year is gonna be three cause Trey wants to go. So they’ll be three generations of Griffeys going hunting and I bring my Dad’s best friend who basically he is my Uncle, and they are the two funniest people because they don’t back down to each other, but they have to stay in the same room. And I can hear them telling these fabricated stories, but it’s great it gives me a chance to hangout with my Dad and see their relationship. I want people to see the relationship I have with my dad, even though my Dad played baseball, it’s a normal relationship. It’s funny he still tells me to this day what to do and I start laughing, cause I’m like “Dad, I’m 50, I have kids of my own,” and he was like “Yeah but that’s not how you do it.” It’s the funniest thing cuz I was like “Hm, you’re going to have to stop this cause we gone have some problems if you don’t.”
BRIAN: It’s so true, parents still see us as kids even when we’re adults and we have kids of our own. It’s the same thing with my family. They still see us as like 11 years old forever. It’s kind of how it works.
KEN: Yeah I have that problem, because my kids are 26, 24, 18. And my daughter will leave the house and I’m like “Hey where you going?” and she’s like “Dad!” I’m like “where you going?” Trey leaves the house I’m like “What time you getting back?” But the toughest part during this pandemic is having a 17 year old. I said “You went from spring break, to senior skip day then went from spring break to senior skip semester, cuz y’all missed the whole semester,” and he started laughing.
But it was tough trying to keep him in the house, keep him engaged, you know we did a lot of board games and things like that, played ping pong, pool. So the social distancing for a 17 year old was kind of tough. At the time he was 17. But I try to tell people, cause all my friends are like “I can’t stay in there” I go “Can you imagine, this is what a celebrity has to go through, not being trapped in the house but not being able to go certain places and do certain things, because is it worth it to go out?” For me I was comfortable. Everybody else was like “I can’t, I gotta get out,” I was like “We’re not going anywhere.” Then as they started easing up we were able to do things. But for the most part it is tough on everybody.
I tell my wife that I was the essential worker cause I was the one going to go get the groceries, go get the mail, and we had an assembly line. You wipe everything off, one person wipes, the other one does this. Since I was the one that went and got everything, I would come in the house and then go directly to take a shower and then come down and start cooking with everybody else.
BRIAN: Yeah, I think it’s so great. I know how close you were, or are, with your Dad. You grew up in the clubhouse with him, and just hearing you talk about him. I think it’s wonderful that, especially with Father’s Day coming up you’re so close with your own kids and you’re present because that’s not really the case with a lot of people in your line of work because you’re on the road so much and you’re traveling and they kind of need to be reintroduced to their family post-career but the relationship you’ve built with your kids is really a strong one, that’s awesome.
KEN: Yeah, that was one of the biggest things that, for me is you only play baseball for a certain amount of time, play sports for a certain amount of time. But I am a Dad, I’m gonna be a Dad longer than I played baseball. Like I said it’s so funny because we do things and like I said I have my kids telling me what to do and like I said they’re 26 and 24. The 18-year-old, Kevin, he hasn’t got that privilege yet of being able to say things, but he’ll look at me and go “Dad, that’s not what we do.” Now if I have a phone problem, a computer problem, that’s the person I call to look at it.
BRIAN: He’s your I.T. guy.
KEN: Yeah. But we have these things, as far as family-wise, we really enjoy each other’s company. Like what’s funny is that Melissa and I are leaving to go out to dinner, my kids are asking us “Y’all didn’t invite us?” So they want to be a part of everything. Am I the fun dad? Absolutely. Am I the disciplinarian? No. Mm-mmm. Cause my Mom was the disciplinarian. I got in trouble, okay?
So i’ll give you a little story. At 15 I took my dad’s car and I was going to pick up my friends, and my grandmother busted me right when I was leaving the driveway. So this was Friday night. My Dad’s in New York at the time so I played the first game of a double header and I got a plane to catch the second half. So I get on the plane and I’m like “Oh my Dad’s gonna kill me, my Dad’s gonna kill me, my Dad’s gonna kill me.” Well back then they could go to the gate, so I come off the plane, he’s sitting on the other side of the aisle at another gate and he just points at me and points to the seat right next to him. So I walk over there, now that little thirty step walk might have been two miles in my eyes. So I sit down and he goes “Oh I knew you was gonna do this, I was just waiting,” and I’m like *sigh* So I know he can’t really do nothing at the airport, so I’m good. So we get in the car and we’re in the car and I’m like “Oh he’s gonna kill me now.”
That little thirty step walk might have been two miles in my eyes.
He didn’t say nothing to me the whole time. And we were at Laguardia and we were going to — we lived in New Jersey at the time. So I was like *sigh*. We get in the house, my mom’s there, I’m like “Well there’s a 50/50 chance he ain’t gonna do nothing now.” So he starts yelling at me, and then in the middle he goes “Go in the room,” and I went “There it is, I’m done.” So I go in the room, and I come running back out cause there’s a brand new glove and some batting gloves for me, and he sticks me on the plane Sunday morning and I play the second game of a double header. Now my Mom had different ideas, she was like “You should’ve just grounded him for life.”
So he understands, and as a male having a young male in the house you understand what happens. Like I tell my wife all the time, I understand what it’s like to be a 15–19 year old male, I can’t tell you that on the female level so her emotions, you deal with that. So we understand our balance in our house, is I’ll say something like “Hey, that’s enough” and she’ll say “Okay,” and then the same thing cuz I’ll say something to Taryn and she’ll say, she’ll go “That’s not how you say something to a girl,” and I’m like “Well I say it to the boys,” “Girls are different,” I’m like “No they’re not” and so we have this thing that how we talk to our kids we may have to change it up because of their gender.
BRIAN: Now your kids are very accomplished athletes as well, your sons play football and your daughter plays college basketball or played college basketball at University of Arizona, so your Dad saw you come up and he taught you the ropes. How’s your parenting style with them when it comes to sports?
KEN: I let the coaches coach. I’ve always had this motto, “If I’m paying I have a say.” So once I stop paying I really don’t have a say, that is all up to you. So through little league and stuff like that I have a say with the coaches because I am paying. Once it got to high school and college I had no say, and I left it at that. In the years where my kids were in college, the two older ones, I have never gone to the head coach and had a conversation in his office. Trey spent five years under Rich Rod, and I’ve never seen Rich Rod’s office.
I would sit in the stands, I like to learn how coaches coach and I’m intrigued by the way that other sports work. I was talking to Rob Turbin, running back, used to be with the Seahawks, and we were talking a couple days ago and he said “Okay tell me how spring training works,” I said “Now you talking about a rookie or a veteran?” he goes “Okay let’s talk about a rookie,” I said “A rookie, if you’re playing you’re there till 5 o’clock,” he said “What happens when you’re not playing as a rookie?” “You’re still there at 5 o’clock.” He said “Ok, as a veteran, if you’re not playing?” I said “Well I take BP at 9:30, I’m in my car going home at 10:30,” he goes “Say that again,” I said “Yeah, we stretch at 9, we start hitting at 9, we do PFP till 9:30, we start hitting at 10, I’m in the first group and the first group I go in and take a shower and them I’m heading home at 10:30.” He goes “What about film?” I said “What film?” He goes “Y’all don’t watch film?” I go “Yeah we watch film on game day of the pitcher that we facing during the regular season, but other than that no. We ain’t sitting there like y’all watching film.” And I just told him “football players don’t retain information as much as baseball players do,” and he started laughing.
BRIAN: So you love photography and you would go shoot your kids’ games from the sidelines and then that way you could kind of watch it in peace. No one would bother you and also you go to take shots of them. I know you’ve shot some Monday Night Football, I know you were at Ichiro’s last game in Tokyo, where does that passion for photography come from and has it kind of allowed you to watch the game in a different way without people bothering you?
KEN: Well I would tease the other parents when I was taking pictures. I’d be like “yeah NFL Films started somewhere, they just didn’t start at the NFL level,” which they probably did. In my case, learning the game and learning photography but it was a much slower pace. A 9-year-old is not gonna run as fast as a pro football player. So I was able to learn certain techniques, and I have friends, Scott Clarke and Phil Ellsworth who have took me under their wings and allowed me to learn the game, the tricks and trying to be in the right spot at the right time.
They’ve done it for so long so here’s where you wanna be when they’re coming down this way. Here’s what camera, here’s the lenses, and whether it was like a 470 to 200 or a little 14 to 24. So I was able to learn and then I just branched out. I went to Africa last Christmas, went to three safaris. I go to an airshow and I sit next to the guy who’s a professional photographer for air shows and ask questions. So it’s just not one aspect. Only thing I haven’t done is underwater shooting, even though I have underwater housing. I think I’d rather have my hands free when I’m underwater.
BRIAN: Yeah, you and me both!
KEN: But everything I’ve learned, whether it’s doing portraits, I’m always trying to not so much occupy my time but to learn what other people are doing, cause I’m not the best photographer, I’m not the best scuba diver, I’m not the best pilot. But I have friends who are the best in that field and I can rely on them. I think that people think that once they’re a pro at something they’re a pro at everything and that’s not the case. There are people who do things better than you and if you’re willing to learn they’re willing to teach.
BRIAN: Going back to Players TV for a minute, have you thought about collaborating on content with Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony? Have you thought about being behind the camera? We’ve talked about reality show and how some outdoor content would be cool but have you thought about being behind the camera? Again, when you look at this opportunity do you envision some things with those people?
KEN: Yeah, I wanna do a day in the life of a football player, a basketball player, a baseball player, simultaneously. What would a football player be doing? What would a basketball player? What would a baseball player? But have it split into three screens so you can see what different players are doing each day, because they are so different. To me, also, it’s a lot easier for an athlete to come talk to another athlete because he has an idea and understands what goes on in that man’s life or that woman’s life. My wife loves soccer. The only position I wanna be on the soccer team, I wanna be the goalie. My wife said “Why do you wanna be the goalie?” I said “Because number one, he gets to wear the different uniform, he got gloves, and he the guy that looks sweet with the water bottle that he could put to the side. Everybody else is doing way too much running for me,” and she starts laughing, she goes “That’s the only thing you think of?” I’m like “Yeah plus he’s the one that for probably 8 minutes out of the game, he’s the one person that you really care about. Everybody else, oh he made a goal, he made a goal, he made a goal, but I can’t believe he let that goal in, I can’t believe he did this.” You know the center and the goalie. Those are really the only two people that you know on the team.
But do I wanna direct? Yeah. And I’ve done enough commercials and been in a couple movies, to just sit behind it. But to dive into it I really want to sit behind a couple shoots first to understand the creative part and what the mindset is before I do. Just don’t want to dive into something and have the people go “No, no, no. It should go like this, it should go like that,” so you can do that with one or two but you just don’t wanna be unorganized when you do shoot something, and as far as my content you really wanna show people that “Hey, I played baseball, but there’s much more to me than just hitting a slider or running into the wall.
BRIAN: I look at someone like Russel Westbrook right now, he’s doing a documentary on Black Wall Street, obviously the Black Lives Matter movement is very very strong right now. Is there any story that you look at historically and say “I wanna tell that story?”
The people that don’t have voices should have a voice and be treated like a human being
KEN: No, I think that you do that what’s going on now with Black Lives Matter. I think it’s important. The thing for me is I wanna be treated fairly by people. That’s all I can ask. I don’t wanna be put on a pedestal because I played baseball and that you know me. Just treat me fairly and aim for me as a human being. And I think that’s the problem that we’re having, is because of who I am. I understand that I have a little more leeway, but the people that don’t have voices should have a voice and be treated like a human being. And I think that when you see these things on TV, some people get numb to it.
But in the black community we never get numb to it because it happens. I sat there because I don’t know what my wife feels when my boys leave and she has to tell me, even though we’ve had the talk. You know what happens when you get pulled over. This is what happens when you see people in uniform. I think it was different for me growing up because I was able to go to the fire department and see those guys. I was able to go to the police department. We had field trips where we’re climbing on the ladders. We had field trips where we went to the police station and saw the police at work in our community. I don’t think that they have that now because having three kids they’ve never had that type of exposure. So I think it is different because so many people the families don’t see the police in a certain way that I did as a kid. They’re always gonna be a few bad apples. There’s bad apples in baseball, there’s bad apples everywhere, but sometimes you can’t blame one guy for the whole community.
Again it’s a tough situation and people just wanna be heard and I think that’s gonna be a positive for the next generation of kids. I think this is a unique situation, I think it’s gonna be better for this country that we’re all in this together. If we cut one another, we all bleed red, so going back to your original question about “Do I wanna film?” No I’ve been sitting, we watched Black Wall Street twice, and my wife was raised in Seattle, outside of Seattle in Gig Harbor. She never heard the story of Tulsa, but I did living on the east coast. So she was like “I’ve never heard about this,” and I was like “Yeah I remember this as a kid, them talking about it.” I mean we sat and watched it four out of five of us, two out of three kids because Trey was at work, so we all sat there and watched it and they were like “I can’t believe that this happened!” So it was quite a learning experience for my kids and my wife, where like I said I heard about it.
It gave us a conversation about, my kids were like “Hey, can we take a trip to go to Tulsa, Oklahoma and just see what happened, and to go to Alabama and walk across the bridge.” They wanna do these things and I’m like “Okay.” The only problem is they so far with their sports where they’re never at home at the same time. So we haven’t done these things. The bridge they really wanna do and they keep bringing it up. Everybody’s home and then the pandemic hit. So they wanted to walk across the bridge, and they wanna go to Tulsa.
BRIAN: That’s great that they wanna learn that and I have a daughter too, and I think young people right now are really interested in the history and they do wanna go to the places where that history happened and I think it’s great that you’re having those conversations with your kids. I know you gotta go soon so just a couple more questions. When you were playing baseball, you and Michael Jordan had more swag than anyone. You had the backwards hat and the black bat and I look at baseball now and it just doesn’t seem to have the same hip, cool factor to it that it had when you were playing, and I know that baseball now is having a tougher time getting young people interested because they’re on their video games or they’re on their phones and they’re not gonna sit and watch a game for two and a half hours. Is there anything baseball can do to kind of try and re attract that young generation?
KEN: I think if you love baseball you love baseball. If you love football you love football. If you love basketball you love basketball. How can you — what my friends say is “baseball has a — they don’t have a talent problem they have a superstar problem.” They got a lot of kids who can play baseball who are real talented, but they don’t have that one or two, three, four superstars that can carry the league. Now did I think about that as a kid? Absolutely not. Did I think about being that guy that carried the league? No, it just so happens to happen. It’s nothing that you go “I wanna be the guy. I wanna carry the league,” because you may not put up the numbers to carry the league.
But for me I was a 19-year-old, it was like the perfect storm. I was a little bit rebellious on certain things. People: “Hey he wears his hat backwards!” Well I wear my hat backwards because my Dad had a ‘fro and I wanted to wear his hat, and if I put his hat on at age six he got an eight and a half and I got a little five, it’s not gonna really stay on my head. So I just turned it around cause I just wanted to wear my Dad’s hat. It wasn’t like I was trying to be different, I just wanted to wear my Dad’s hat. Even now when I put on the hat I put it on backwards.
BRIAN: That’s a great story, I never knew that was kind of the reason for why you wore your hat backwards but it became cool and you had to have noticed all of the kids that were wearing their hat backwards because of you.
KEN: Yeah I start laughing because you had the rounded brim guys who had the fold, the one big crease in the middle, then now you got the flat billed hat, but the one thing that all of them do is turn it around. So, have I noticed it? I was on a Nike trip last year and I was the only one with their hat forward, everyone else had their hat backwards and they’re like “How can you?” I was like “What … yeah,” then I turned my hat around they were like “Okay that’s better.”
BRIAN: You know they were all wearing it backwards cause of you and then they’re like “Wait a minute, he’s the only one not wearing it backwards.”
KEN: Yeah, I still do it. It’s so ingrained in me. You talk about being defiant, I belong to a country club here and I got a letter in the mail that says you gotta wear your peak forward, meaning your bill facing forward. So I built hats and it said “Peak Forward” on the back of it, so when I turned it around it said “Peak Forward.” That’s who I am. I almost left the club because of “You’re not gonna let me wear my hat backwards?” It’s not like I’m a slob. It’s not like my shirt is untucked. This is who I am. And I think when I did the three interviews, I think being who I am, my life is an open book. You know that everything you see, from Home Run Derbies to this to that, my hat’s gonna be backwards until I play, and if the Mariners would’ve put a logo on the back of the hat I might’ve just wore it backwards then.
BRIAN: And millions of kids would’ve done the same thing, I guarantee it. And they would’ve been trying to play their games with their hats backwards.
KEN: Yeah, I actually played a little league of a game with my hat backwards. I played a big league game, we had “Turn Ahead the Clock” so I was able to wear my hat backwards during the game. I wore my hat backwards in little league games all the time.
BRIAN: Well and you wore your hat backwards in the Home Run Derby, especially the one that you hit the bomb off of the building at Camden Yards. That’s an iconic picture of you hitting that shot cause no one’s hit that building before or since and you had the hat backwards. So that was fun in the Home Run Derby too that A. Major League Baseball let you do that but B. that’s a fun event and you brought fun to those events and you brought energy to those events.
KEN: If you’re gonna do it, you’ve gotta have some fun. My thing is I’m not gonna do something that I won’t enjoy. It’s just, I’m not gonna give you the effort. I will tell you schoolwork was a little different. Nobody likes to do schoolwork but that has to be done. I don’t like to take out the garbage, but it has to be done. There’s certain things in this world that you’re gonna have to do. But for me, doing Home Run Derbies, playing baseball, I enjoyed it and that’s what I want to do.
Sports teaches you so many things, it teaches you how to fail and get back up. Not everybody’s gonna be successful. Well sports is the one thing, that one good shot, that one good hit, that one good catch, that one good pass keeps you coming back. But it teaches you that failure, you don’t have to accept it you just gotta keep going. I was talking to the kids last night about I had 10,000 at bats, a little less than 10,000 at bats I got 2,700 hits, well I had to fail a little more than 7,000 times, and they look at it a different way like “Oh.” I said “So I understand about failure more than you guys do, because if you catch 3 passes out of 10 in football you ain’t gonna last too long. You make 3 shots out of 10 in basketball, you’re not gonna last too long. I understand about getting knocked down and having to pick yourself back up, because I’ve had to do it more times than you guys.”
BRIAN: Resilience, it’s definitely a common factor with successful people. As we end, speaking of failure my golf game is a failure but I know that you love golf and you’ve played some great courses. We were talking before, I live in Oregon so Bandon Dunes is one of my favorite resorts, I just got to play the opening of the Sheep Ranch. I know you’ve played at Bandon, are there some other courses that you have really enjoyed over the course of your lifetime?
KEN: I went to Scotland, went to Ireland, I played in Spain, but U.S. courses, Pebble Beach, Torrey Pines, Bandon Dunes, I belong to Grove 23 which is Michael’s course.
BRIAN: Where is that?
KEN: Hobe Sound. I’m a member at Isleworth. I play Disney a lot. I have friends who are VPs at Disney so we get a chance to go out. I like to play everywhere. People say you’re playing the guy next to you — no, you’re playing the golf course. They get mad at me because I call it a recreational activity. I said “There’s no defense in golf,” they’re like “The course is the defense,” I go “He ain’t human. He can’t force his will on you. If you wanna hit a seven iron all the way down, you can.” I said “But let somebody stand in front of you and block your shot. It’s a little different. Let somebody catch your fly ball. It’s a little different.”
BRIAN: Have you ever played with Tiger?
KEN: Yeah. I’ve played with Tiger up until like ’99, when he moved down to Jupiter. Early in his career we’d probably play about 40 times a year. There was one game that it was — now I’m the high handicapper at this time at like ten — and it was Mark O’Mara, Payne Stewart, Lee Janzen, Scott Hoch, Craig Perry, Grant Waite, Tiger, I know I’m missing somebody, and it was like there was a cluster of all of them and then my ball. Then there was a cluster of all of them on the green then there was my ball. These guys, the best in the world, and they’re just throwing darts all day. I think Tiger shot 62, and then Tiger and I went out a little later and he gave me 12 shots and I shot 76 and he shot like 60, 61, 62 somewhere around there. He said “Oof, you made me work for that one.” and started laughing. But there was one game where he lost to my wife on a par five. We’re all playing and this is the year that Michael and John Elway retired, so we tee off, she hits a bomb and then she hits it to like two feet of the pin. So she eagles it, Tiger birdies it and I par it. Well, she was like “I’m gone,” she jumps in the golf cart and drives home. She was like “I just beat the number one player in the world, what do I have to prove now?”
BRIAN: Oh that’s a great story,
KEN: And she never played after that. She’s never really played golf after that. She’s like “I can only go down after beating him.” She’s won the Ladies Cup at Isleworth, I came in like third so she’s got the bigger trophy from golf at the house and that’s not fun, cause my friends always remind me. “Who has the bigger trophy in golf?” and I’ll be like “Ohhh.” But I have to remind her and everyone else that I have three hole in ones now.
BRIAN: Wow, three hole in ones? Where’s your first one?
KEN: At Disney after the tournament. So when they had the tournament here, one of my friends and I, Director of Golf at Disney, we would go out that Monday and it was number 12 par from three, hit a little cut five iron and never saw it go in. I went to the back bunker, he went to the front bunker and then he walked and he threw his hat down and it was sitting there. I made an eight on the next hole cause I was calling everybody.
BRIAN: Hey, all anyone cares about is the hole in one they don’t care about the eight.
KEN: And then this past November I was in Mexico and I made a hole in one, and then in January I made another one.
BRIAN: Dang, you’re on a role with hole in ones.
KEN: Right, I told her I got my international hole in one so I’m good.
BRIAN: That’s great. Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball Hall of Famer, you can find him on instagram @TheRealKenGriffeyJr. Again, investor and partner with Player’s TV, you can find them online at PlayersTV.co. Ken, such a pleasure to talk to you. Happy Father’s Day to you, seems like you’re a great dad and this has been a pleasure and I appreciate it.
KEN: No problem, thank you.
Listen to the whole episode on the Sports Business Radio Podcast:
Sports Business Radio focuses on the issues and people directly impacting the world of sports business. Guests on the show offer an insider’s perspective include pro sports league executives, agents, college athletics administrators, sports apparel company reps, ad agency executives, media executives and athletes.
