If you watched ESPN (or plenty of other cable networks) throughout the ’90s and ’00s, you’ve almost certainly seen an infomercial-style spot for Tom Emanski’s baseball instructional videos.

Most of them featured Fred McGriff, introduced (rightly, but comically when you’ve seen it a million times) as “Atlanta Braves superrstar Fred McGriff”, before McGriff gave his endorsement to the line of instructional videos with a legendary awkward delivery.

It was always incongruous; why would Fred McGriff be appearing in this commercial, which then aired in pretty much its original form for more than a decade? Last night we finally got an answer, as McGriff told the story of how it was filmed, and how he didn’t expect it to have anything close to the exposure it ended up receiving.

Oh man, here is Fred McGriff on how the Tom Emanski video happened! Note: 1) Tom fixed Fred's swing when he was a prospect. 2) Roughly six years later…. well, here's Fred: pic.twitter.com/j0O2rft0N2 — TOM MARTIN (@LetItFlyTom) June 29, 2019

It’s nice that the whole thing was as lo-fi as the finished product made it seem.

[KCTV5]