An idea too good to ignore
Spawned on MLB Network and promoted in The Athletic, the Legends Home Run Derby is an idea whose time has come
As Jayson Stark explained in The Athletic Monday, it began innocently enough last week at the start of the MLB Network interview above. Hours before some of the biggest stars in the game would take their swings, recently retired Albert Pujols, now a rookie TV analyst, asked Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr., “So, are we going to see you in the Home Run Derby tonight?”
Griffey’s reply: “If you do it, I’ll do it.”
As Stark lays out in his story, it didn’t take long for the momentum for a Legends Home Run Derby to begin to grow.
With Griffey (630 home runs) and Pujols (703) on board, next came a text from Hall of Famer Jim Thome (612 home runs), who was watching the interview at home in Illinois.
“If Griffey’s gonna get ready, maybe I’ll jump in there, too,” he wrote.
A few minutes later, Pujols ran into another Hall of Fame slugger.
“I just saw David Ortiz (541 home runs). I told him about our idea. He said he’s in all the way.”
According to Stark, a Hall of Fame writer himself, the idea has already reached MLB brass.
If you read Jayson’s piece, you’ll see the full details of his proposed format. In a nutshell:
It’s would be a team competition with 2 teams of 4 retired sluggers competing in a style similar to the 1960s TV show Home Run Derby.
Rather than having retired sluggers in their 40s and 50s taking 50 or 60 swings in 3 minutes and risk injury, the contest lasts 9 innings. One team hits in the top half, the other in the bottom of each inning. Each half inning consists of one hitter swinging until he makes 3 outs (anything that’s not a home run is an out).
You combine each team’s inning-by-inning home run totals with the 4 hitters on each team rotating by innings. For example, if a team were made up of the 4 sluggers mentioned, Griffey could hit in the first and 5th innings, Pujols in the 2nd and 6th, Thome in the 3rd and 7th and Ortiz in the 4th and 8th. The other team would rotate its 4 hitters in the other half of each inning.
Stark suggests that prior to the 9th inning, each side could pick whichever of its 4 hitters it wants to use for the last at-bat. Who’s in the best home run-hitting groove?
Stark also suggests holding the event on the Saturday night before the All-Star Game, right after the Futures Game, and having the participants in the Futures Game—the stars of tomorrow—on the field to watch the stars of yesterday.
How can you not be romantic about an idea like this?
How is this anything short of an absolute grand slam for Major League Baseball?
You might have more people watch the Legends Home Run Derby, particularly with the right names involved, than you would get to watch the Monday night Derby.
The format proposed by Stark gives the retired stars a chance to compete and put on a show but also gives them enough downtime to limit the risk of any physical issues. Griffey said in the story he’d want to have a year to get ready. Thome suggested he’d need 4 to 6 months.
I’ll throw out this suggestion to sweeten the deal: How about the winning team receives a significant amount of prize money that gets divided among the 4 participants, with each able to donate his cut of the winnings to the charity of his choice?
Stark mentioned Griffey, Pujols, Thome and Ortiz in his story. Who are some other retired sluggers you’d like to see participate in an event like this in 2024?
Sign me up for Miguel Cabrera, who is hanging it up at the end of this season. Give me Gary Sheffield, Frank Thomas, Vladimir Guerrero, Chipper Jones and Jeff Bagwell. You think Alex Rodriguez would say no to an invitation? What about Madison Bumgarner if he doesn’t pitch in 2024? One of the best hitting pitchers of his generation, he’d spoken in the past about wanting to participate in the Home Run Derby.
Stark suggested Ryan Howard, Prince Fielder, Jason Giambi and Yoenis Cespedes.
Would MLB invite some combination of Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa?
One of Stark’s ideas was to include a player representing the host team each year.
I’m sold. How about you?
Why am I so enthusiastic about this idea? I would guess for the same reason many others might be excited about it.
So much of the draw of the game for many of us who love it is its baked-in nostalgia, the history, those Norman Rockwell sepia-toned memories of playing catch with Dad, collecting baseball cards, tuning in to Mel Allen on This Week in Baseball at 12:30 every Saturday before Joe Garagiola and Tony Kubek took over to call NBC’s Game of the Week.
Who wouldn’t want to see Ken Griffey Jr.’s gorgeous swing launching fly balls into the night one more time?
This brings me back to the discussion last week about the All-Star uniforms and baseline introductions. I talked about what it meant to me, as a young fan, to see my favorite players bounding up the dugout steps and out to the foul line to take their place among the other brightest stars in the Game, all wearing the distinctive uniform that immediately caught the attention of any hometown fan.
By introducing AL- and NL-specific uniforms in 2020—and even doing away with introductions along the first- and 3rd-base lines this year, MLB has deprived us of pictures like this one from 2018.
And how could any baseball fan who came of age in the 1970s as I did not get sentimental seeing a picture like this one from 1977.
What about this dugout shot of the 1979 NL starting lineup?
These memories are such a big part of why many of us love the Game the way we do.
So, yeah, if I get another chance to see Ken Griffey Jr. climb into the batter’s box…if maybe one of my kids gets his or her first chance to see that majestic swing…
That’s a great day for us, and that’s a great day for Baseball.
While you’re here…
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Here in Cuba, on some occasions a HR Derby has been held, as well as a game for players who are no longer active and I tell you that they were a complete success, even, sometimes, they came to have more acceptance and charisma than their own game of active players. Hopefully and MLB put it into practice.
Great Ideas!