A warning: If you grew up in the ’90s, please sit down before reading this. We hate to break it to you, but a significant portion of your childhood just got ruined. Turns out, Fred McGriff has never seen the Tom Emanski defensive drills videos he endorses in a popular commercial.
This devastating news was revealed by McGriff during Kenny Mayne’s final show at ESPN on Monday.
This might be hard to believe, considering how often that commercial aired. You couldn’t make it through a full sports program without seeing McGriff tell you he’s “so impressed with the instructional videos by Coach Emanski.” At a certain point, you started to take it as the truth.
So … yeah. Sorry to shatter your childhood. It hurts us just as much, honestly.
Fred McGriff waiting for Hall of Fame call
Those Emanski drills — McGriff did actually train with Emanski — must have paid off for McGriff, because he was one of the best first baseman of his era. McGriff finished his career with numbers worthy of the Hall of Fame. He has 2,490 hits, 493 home runs and a .284/.377/.509 slash line.
Those figures, however, were not enough to get McGriff voted into the Hall of Fame while he was on the ballot. If McGriff is going to get in now, he’ll have to do it through the Eras Committee. The Eras Committee selects players who it feels were snubbed from the Hall of Fame, and has a select group of baseball writers or baseball executives vote on the player’s candidacy. That’s how Harold Baines made it into the Hall of Fame. The writers didn’t vote him in, but he got in through the Eras Committee.
It wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see McGriff get the same treatment. His numbers aren’t far off. All he needs is support from someone on the Eras Committee.
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