The other day during a rain delay, Fox Sports Ohio passed some of the time by talking with Junior about his game-related superstitions. Thanks to the Crack Technical Staff for capturing the details.

Griffey likes to drive the same car to the park every day. If two days in a row, he doesn’t get any hits, he won’t drive that car the third day. If he doesn’t get any hits for a week, he ships the car back to his home in Florida and has a new car brought up.

Griffey refuses to use a game bat if someone else uses it.

Junior always walks to home plate the same way. He likes to lead with his right foot going into the batter’s box. When dugout on the third base side, waits for the umpire and catcher to settle before heading to the box.

Griffey doesn’t eat leftovers (except for after the Thanksgiving meal).

In pursuit of the grace of the baseball gods, he has taken showers fully clothed and has also thrown away an entire uniform.

When Griff was with the Mariners, teammate Jay Buhner had a 4-hit night. In a demonstration of how far he’s willing to go, Griffey sneaked into Buhner’s house that evening and placed his bat between Buhner and his wife. Apparently, some of the hitting rubbed off on the bat because Griffey got a couple hits the next day.

The Reds faced Fausto Carmona today, and Slyde on Red Reporter commented on what the Reds’ hitting approach needs to be.

[Carmona] has nearly TWICE AS MANY WALKS AS STRIKEOUTS. I yelled that…because the Reds have to, have to, have to be patient today.

Really? You think that that’s what will be going through the minds of a Dusty Baker-led team? Wow. It’s so sad. Reds fans were most definitely not paying attention during Baker’s disastrous managerial stint in Chicago.

Let’s consult the box score: Carmona had 4 strikeouts, so given his historical trends, you would think he’d walk 8. However, Dusty Baker, hitting genius that he is, tells all his batters to swing, swing, swing. So I’m going with zero walks.

I love being right. 🙂