We Should Have Known David Ortiz Was Going To Be A Hall Of Famer When He Beat Ken Griffey Jr. And Alex Rodriguez In A Home Run Derby As A 19-Year Old In A-Ball

RDT1/26/2022 4:30 PM

This video goes viral every few months I feel like, and it deserves to. Obviously with Ortiz getting inducted into the Hall of Fame it's now making the rounds again. This event should have cemented Ortiz as being a hall of famer. The Mariners were doing a bit of barnstorming back in 1996. They had Ken Griffey Jr., a young Alex Rodriguez and they went to their single-A ballpark to play an exhibition. It rained a ton so the game got cancelled, Lou Pinella was not letting his team go out there. Instead they decided to do a home run derby and you'll never guess who won. Not Junior Griffey, not A-Rod, but a string bean guy wearing #47 in A ball, David Ortiz. He went out there and smoked both Griffey and A-Rod. Griffey couldn't even hit one out! Ortiz was out there pumping bomb after bomb. They challenged the young kid and he put them on notice. A-Rod was in shock watching Ortiz hit the long balls, as he should have been. Guy put on a show. It really is an awesome throwback video and it's something that we don't really see anymore. These future hall of famers going down on the farm and playing HR Derby with young guns, I'd love to see stuff like this now. Nonetheless it was awesome watching a super young Ortiz hold his own with two of the games best. Just a real cool video featuring two hall of famers and one should be hall of famer.

The swing is pretty much the same, the frame is completely different though. He looks like he weighs about 200 pounds here. Shocking what these guys can do when they put some legit weight and muscle on these tiny frames.