Ken Griffey Sr. once hit me with a hitting lesson I’ll never forget.
We were talking shop one day—breaking down swings—and Griffey, long-time Reds star and hitting coach, posed a question that stopped me in my tracks:
“If a player has a 10 Swing on the 10 scale and a 4 Body… or a 4 Swing and a 10 Body, what would his game swing be?”
Naturally, I did the math: 10 + 4 = 14 ÷ 2 = 7
“7,” I answered, confident.
Wrong.
Griffey shook his head and dropped this truth bomb:
“If either one’s a 4, your game swing is a 4.”
He wasn’t being harsh—just real. And the example he gave made it all click.
“Take the best 12-year-old swing in the world—a mini Ted Williams—and drop him in Citizens Bank Park against Curt Schilling. What happens?”
Schilling would blow him away. Not because the kid’s swing isn’t pure—but because he simply can’t catch up to the heat.
And anyone watching would walk away thinking, “Wow… that kid has an awful swing.”
Here’s what Griffey knew that most don’t:
🔑 Most bad swings are caused by a lack of strength or bat speed.
When hitters can’t keep up, even athletic ones, they start compensating—contorting their bodies, cutting corners, doing whatever they can just to make contact. And that’s where swing flaws are born.
Later, I made the mistake of bringing up a Bonus Baby outfielder I played with. Big prospect. Got all the way to Triple-A, but never made it. I said, “He just couldn’t hit a curveball.”
Griffey corrected me—again.
“If he made it to Triple-A, he had to hit the curveball at some point. What he couldn’t hit was the big-league combo—velocity and location. He probably had to cheat just to catch up to the fastball. That’s the real issue.”
Photo of Ken Griffey Sr. on the field
You never really know if someone can hit MLB pitching until they face it. But one thing’s for sure:
🧢 No one was ever too strong or too quick to play baseball.
That spring, I had a chance to visit Reds spring training in Sarasota. I walked into the locker room—and thought I was in the Cincinnati Bengals facility.
These guys were monsters.
The only ones who looked underdeveloped were the A-ball players—still filling out. Everyone else? Built like NFL linebackers.
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