SEATTLE — Ken Griffey Jr. was a decade into his Hall of Fame profession when Ian Matos was born, and The Kid retired when Matos was nonetheless truly a child.
Thanks to expertise and an web teeming with spotlight movies although, the 23-year-old was nonetheless capable of mannequin his center-field type after among the best within the sport.
And when Matos lastly had the chance Thursday to shake palms with the Mariners legend himself, the second, Matos mentioned, was virtually surreal.
“I just told him that it was really an honor to me,” mentioned Matos, who simply accomplished his senior season at Alabama State. “To me, he’s just such a big presence, an icon in my eyes. Every time I see a Ken Griffey highlight, I’m like, ‘I’m trying to be like that; I want to do what he does.’ He’s one of the greatest of all time.”
The 49 school gamers on the sector with Matos on Thursday shared his pleasure, with a lot of them taking time to jog over throughout exercises and thank Griffey for placing collectively the inaugural HBCU Swingman Classic introduced by T-Mobile & Powered by the MLB-MLBPA Youth Development Foundation.
The Swingman’s principal occasion takes place at 7:30 p.m. PT Friday at T-Mobile Park and is billed as a university All-Star sport throughout All-Star Week. It will characteristic 50 of the highest gamers from Division I Historically Black Colleges & Universities, chosen by a committee that included Griffey, representatives from MLB and the MLBPA, and scouts.
“Growing up, we see what [Griffey] did for the game and see how he changed the game, brought swagger to it,” mentioned Grambling State infielder Keanu Jacobs-Guishard. “And now, we can do stuff that they couldn’t do back in their day. So there’s a huge opportunity to be on this platform and continue to go on a path that he paved for us. This is a big opportunity for me, too, and I’m very grateful for it.”
Playing on a Major League subject shouldn’t be the one red-carpet remedy the gamers earned this week: The group was invited to take part in quite a lot of MLB All-Star Week actions, together with a welcome reception dinner following Thursday’s exercises, tickets to the SiriusXM All-Star Futures Game on Saturday, and varied alternatives to volunteer locally.
The Swingman’s focus is to spotlight the historical past and legacy of baseball applications at HBCUs across the nation and to offer a chance for a few of the prime student-athletes from these faculties to achieve publicity on a nationwide stage.
“This is something that basically started 70 years ago with Jackie Robinson, and then to Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, and all the guys who are sitting here who I played against and played with,” Griffey mentioned, addressing the group on the welcome dinner. “We’re all right here as a result of they consider the identical factor, and that is the nice sport of baseball. And they wish to see you guys achieve success.
“I know that there’s been some roadblocks, and I know not everybody can go to a Power 5 conference and be seen. But I’ll tell you what: Everybody in this room loves baseball. I think we have that bond, day in and day out, it’s what we think about.”
Workouts Thursday seemed rather a lot like a typical pregame routine, with gamers splitting into teams and biking via stretching, batting apply on the sector and within the cages, and throwing and fielding drills. It was additionally a chance for the gamers to get to know each other, share their tales and proceed to construct the legacy of black athletes in baseball, Ken Griffey Sr. mentioned.
“They get a chance to meet some Hall of Famers, and then they want to show off what they’ve got,” he added. “That’s the biggest thing. They’re getting an opportunity to show people what they’ve got, how they handle themselves on the field and with the bat. Everything out here in this situation is a plus for them.”
The elder Griffey was one among many marquee names hooked up to the Classic, together with Hall of Famer Andre Dawson, veterans Cito Gaston, Marquis Grissom, Rickie Weeks, MLB’s chief baseball improvement officer Tony Reagins and extra.
Now that he is graduated, Matos’ “Plan A” is to play professional ball. For him, having the ability to spend time choosing the brains of the greats who got here earlier than him — an exercise Griffey Jr. inspired every Swingman athlete to do that week — felt like an ideal option to proceed to mould his sport right into a profession.
“[Swingman] is definitely one-of-a-kind, unique, and my first time, really, in any big event, just meeting all these people that I watch on TV, and I just look up to,” he mentioned. “It’s just amazing to me that I’m here.”
Content Source: www.mlb.com