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Getting fired by Burger King helped Fred McGriff make it to Cooperstown, and other great Hall of Fame stories
Getting fired by Burger King helped Fred McGriff hit his way into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
That’s just one of the personal tidbits the newest Hall of Famers revealed during a rollicking, laughter-filled Roundtable the day after their Cooperstown induction.
McGriff and Scott Rolen, the only members of the Class of 2023, were star infielders who played for multiple teams. Both were perennial All-Stars who won World Series rings.
A graduate of the same Thomas Jefferson High School as fellow Hall of Famer Tony La Russa, McGriff hit a home run on the first pitch he saw in the World Series. It happened in 1995 for the Atlanta Braves against Orel Hershiser, then with the Cleveland Indians.
“I was an aggressive hitter,” said McGriff, who finished with 493 home runs plus 10 more in postseason play. “I got my share of walks because pitchers knew Fred’s going to be ready to swing.
“When I was in the on-deck circle, I was getting ready to swing. In my first World Series appearance, I had butterflies. But the best way to get rid of butterflies is to swing at that first pitch.
“I was looking dead red against Orel. And it sent my heart pumping a little bit.”
According to roundtable moderator Jon Morosi, the ball McGriff hit is still flying somewhere over Atlanta.
“If you have the plate covered, you can hit the outside pitch for a home run and or an inside pitch for a home run,” the former first baseman said.
“Speak for yourself, Fred,” Rolen interjected to laughter from the Doubleday Field audience.
Like McGriff, Rolen ripped an important post-season homer — a shot against Roger Clemens in Game 7 of the 2004 National League Championship Series.
“I was getting some pretty good swings against him,” Rolen remembered. “I hit a ball that was tracked down in the gap in left and then squared up a ball in right center and lined out.
“Albert [Pujols] got a hit to knock in a run and we were down one. The [Houston] manager came out and talked to Clemens. I said to myself, ‘If you leave him in, you lose.’
“He turned around, patted him, and left him in. Roger threw a first-pitch fastball and there it was. That was one time in my career where I felt, ‘I think I have this one.’”
One day earlier, both players delivered emotional speeches that took lots of preparation.
“It was ugly,” Rolen admitted. “When I was in my house, talking about my kids and my dad, I thought this is not going to work. I got choked up early when I was talking about my wife and family.
“In the first place, it was such a massive undertaking, you have to calm yourself down. And when Fred was done, he sat down next to me and said, ‘It was a breeze.’”
Rolen’s audience included his son and 14 other boys, all players for the Indiana team he coaches.
“I love those boys,” he said. “We’ve been together five or six years. Every single player on the team came. We got some pictures together in front of the Hall of Fame. I really wanted to recognize them.”
Both men insisted they reached the pinnacle of the sport through years of practice.
“I started in Little League at age 7,” said McGriff, who was unanimously chosen by the 16-member Contemporary Players Era Committee. “I grew up playing a lot of games. I was taught to hit, hit, hit, and get on base. Now players are taught to wait for a walk.
“Being a power hitter, you’re taught to make contact out in front. You study the pitcher and get a report on him. Sometimes he’s going to fool you, though.
“I looked for a fastball every time. But you have to learn how to protect yourself. Now they have elbow guards, shin guards, and all this equipment on. I’m like, ‘Take that stuff off and let’s play.’ And then try to step in against [Hall of Fame strikeout artist] Randy Johnson.
“All I wanted to do against Randy was make contact. I said, ‘On this day, Randy ain’t going to hit me.’ The game’s on TV so you can’t play like you’re scared.”
Both players won world championship rings, McGriff with the 1995 Braves and Rolen with the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals. But the road was long and difficult.
McGriff played for six teams and Rolen four.
“All my managers had different personalities,” Rolen revealed. “On my first day in the big leagues, Mark Sweeney hit a ground ball. I fielded it, threw it, and he beat it because I double-pumped. When we came off the field, Jim Fregosi was sitting halfway up the runway. I was getting my batting gloves and helmet on and he called me over to say ‘Are you ever going to do that again?’ Then he told me to go hit. For the rest of my career, I never fielded a ball cleanly and had a guy beat it out.”
Rolen played for Terry Francona, Larry Bowa, Tony La Russa, John Gibbons, Cito Gaston, and Dusty Baker. “You watch them manage, lead, treat people, see how they deal with media, and you think if I were the manager, how would I do that someday?
“I coach 15-year-old boys and am way too busy these days. I already have a job.”
McGriff, 59, is 11 years older than his Class of 2023 colleague. But the Tampa native didn’t escape the School of Hard Knocks before turning those knocks into game-winning shots.
“When I told my manager at Burger King I had to go to baseball tryouts, he told me not to come back,” said the lanky lefty. “I couldn’t miss my baseball tryout so I went back to Tampa Stadium to sell Coca-Cola. Going up and down those stairs carrying all that soda really helped me. It strengthened my legs.”
The teenaged McGriff made himself a local legend with a home run against future Cy Young Award winner Dwight Gooden when both were in Little League.
“Facing him in high school put me on the map,” said the man called Crime Dog after a fuzzy cartoon character called McGruff. “He’s still one of the best pitchers I ever faced. He got drafted in 1982 by the Mets and I watched him in the minors, where he was striking out 300 batters per season. Then he went up to the big leagues.”
McGriff later hit another memorable homer, pinch-hitting a ninth-inning home run against Lee Smith to tie the 1994 All-Star Game, eventually won by the National League.
“When young hitters come to me,” said McGriff, “I share the wisdom of Charlie Lau’s book on hitting. Nowadays, with launch angles and everything else, the new generation thinks their bats should be at 22 degrees. I say ‘Swing the bat and try to get them before they get you.’ If you take pitches against Greg Maddux, you’re going to be walking back to the dugout.”
Rolen agreed. “Simplicity is the key,” said the former third baseman, whose main teams were the Phillies, Cardinals, and Reds. “We call it simple but it’s hard as hell. To compound it and make it harder makes no sense. There’s nothing wrong with a ground ball up the middle.
“If I’m working with kids, I don’t break swings down. I want everybody to do what’s comfortable and natural to them.”
Rolen revealed that the 2004 Cardinals were the best team he ever played for. “The clubhouse was great,” he said, but the underdog Red Sox got hot when it counted and swept the World Series. Two years later, however, the Cards won the World Series, thanks in part to a Game 1 Rolen home run against Detroit’s Justin Verlander.
“He elevated the pitch and I hit it out,” Rolen said “We won in five games. I don’t know how it happened but bringing a World Series back to St. Louis was pretty cool.”
McGriff still laments the loss of the 1996 World Series, which would have given the Atlanta Braves back-to-back championships. Atlanta won the first two games at Yankee Stadium but then lost four in a row, including all three at home.
“If an umpire calls a strike on you,” he said, “it can change a series or at least the dynamic of a game. In Atlanta, I remember when Derek Jeter hit a foul ball down the right field line, the umpire got in the way of Jermaine Dye, and the ball dropped. Right after that, Jim Leyritz hit the three-run pinch-homer that tied the game.
“People talk about the Braves not winning championships but if you break down every World Series they lost, one or two plays did it.
“The Yankees hold spring training in Tampa so I see all these hats around town with NY on them. Not a day goes by that I don’t see one. And it still hurts. Those Braves had great players.”
McGriff, a lefthanded batter, said he mastered the art of hitting left-handed pitching with his first team, the Toronto Blue Jays.
“I got traded from the Yankees to the Jays and Cecil Fielder was traded from the Royals to the Jays,” he said. “I was at AAA Syracuse and he got called up from Double-A. We played cards all the time. That first year, I was the DH against righthanded pitching and Cecil was the DH against lefties. That worked out well since there were more righthanders. And they wouldn’t take me out of the game if a lefty reliever came in so I learned how to hit lefties.”
Rolen revealed that he sat with Jack Morris, Mike Mussina, Greg Maddux and Trevor Hoffman at one of the Induction Weekend dinner parties.
“They talked pitching all night,” he said. “Maddux looked around the room and said, ‘If you’re a general manager, which one of us would you take first?’ I thought about it and said, ‘Probably you, man.’”
Maddux leads all living pitchers with 355 lifetime victories – quite a few of them achieved with McGriff’s help.
Both men admitted they look forward to next year, when they’ll be on the dais and won’t have to make speeches.
“The players told me next year is going to be awesome,” McGriff said, speaking for both of them. “You’ll do some fishing, play some golf, and just relax.”
– Longtime SCD columnist Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ is the author of 40 baseball books, including this year’s “Baseball’s Memorable Misses: an Unabashed Look at the Game’s Craziest Zeroes”. He is also a national baseball writer for forbes.com. Email him at ballauthor@gmail.com.
