Fred McGriff
| Fred McGriff | |||
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| First baseman | |||
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Born: October 31, 1963 Tampa, Florida |
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| MLB debut | |||
| May 17, 1986, for the Toronto Blue Jays | |||
| Last MLB appearance | |||
| July 15, 2004, for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays | |||
| MLB statistics | |||
| Batting average | .284 | ||
| Hits | 2,490 | ||
| Home runs | 493 | ||
| Runs batted in | 1,550 | ||
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| Career highlights and awards | |||
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Frederick Stanley McGriff (born October 31, 1963) is an American former professional baseball first baseman, who played for six Major League Baseball (MLB) teams from 1986 through 2004. A power-hitting first baseman, he became a five-time All-Star and led both leagues in home runs in separate years – the American League in 1989 and the National League in 1992. McGriff finished his career with 493 home runs, tied with Hall of Fame player Lou Gehrig, and only seven homers away from joining the 500 home run club. He won a World Series title as a first baseman with the Atlanta Braves in 1995. He currently works in the Atlanta Braves' front office as Special Assistant to Baseball Operations.
McGriff's nickname, "Crime Dog", one of the many humorous nicknames created by sports broadcaster Chris Berman, is a play on McGruff, a cartoon dog created for American police to raise children's awareness on crime prevention. At first, McGriff stated he would prefer "Fire Dog" (a reference to a fire in the press-box of Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium the day the Braves acquired him from the Padres; symbolically, the then-slumping Braves "caught fire" and ended up winning their division), but since has stated that he actually is fond of the "Crime Dog" nickname.
McGriff was a prospect in the New York Yankees minor league system in the early 1980s. He was drafted by the Yankees in the 9th round of the 1981 amateur draft and signed June 11, 1981. In 1982, the Yankees dealt McGriff, Dave Collins and Mike Morgan to the Toronto Blue Jays for Dale Murray and Tom Dodd. The trade is now considered one of the most one-sided deals in baseball history, and one of the worst in Yankees history. However, it appeared to make some sense from the Yankees' perspective, since McGriff was blocked from first base by Don Mattingly. Nonetheless, the Yankees didn't get nearly enough in return. Murray won only three games in three years with the Yankees, and was out of baseball by 1986. Dodd was released at the end of the season, and apart from a month with the Baltimore Orioles in 1986 spent the remainder of his career in the minors. In 2006, Rob Neyer wrote that the trade looked particularly lopsided because it was one of the few instances that a player of McGriff's stature was traded before getting to the majors.
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