Ken Griffey Jr. to return to Home Run Derby at GABP

Ken Griffey Jr. won the Home Run Derby three times in his career, but at this year's All-Star festivities, he'll be on the other end, throwing out the first pitch at the derby on Monday at Great American Ball Park.

Griffey's participation was announced on Tuesday, along with other pregame festivities.

While Griffey never pitched, he did hit 68 home runs at Great American Ball Park and won the Home Run Derby in 1994, 1998 and 1999.

Now 45, Griffey was asked if he could still do the Home Run Derby.

"Could I win it?" he asked.

Could you compete?

"Yeah," he said with a laugh.

Although Griffey hasn't played since 2010, he said he's swung a bat as recently as two weeks ago.

"I still have Little League kids who want to learn how to hit," Griffey said. "I still have a 13-year-old who wants to hit."

And that trademark swing — the sweet, looping, left-handed thing of beauty — is still there. At least that's what Griffey said.

"I was so used to hitting every day, I'm able to get in a batting cage for an hour-and—a-half work out the kinks," Griffey said. "I still hit every year because I still work for the Mariners, all the kids want me to hit with them. So all the minor league kids, I hit with them. It's easier to talk about hitting and do it that way than telling them about it. A lot of kids are visual learners. So what I do is I take their swing and I modify it. I don't change what they do."

In fact, he said his own swing was just a modification of his father's swing.

"All my swing is a stand-up version of my dad's. If you look at me early and then look at me in the middle is when I started standing up," he said. "When I came up, I bent over like my dad. I wasn't standing straight up until later. I stood up and got a little more leverage and I thought, maybe I should try this. That's when I started launching.

"If you look at it, every swing, at impact, needs to be in front of your front knee. Guys teach wait for it, wait for it, wait for it — let it travel. No, catch that off at the pass."

And the Home Run Derby, it's that same idea, just magnified. Griffey said the only change he made for the derby was to swing a little earlier.

"Instead of me hitting the ball on a line, I was able to hit a tad bit further on the upswing," he said.

Other than that, his strategy was simple -- "Just hit as many as possible."

As for this Derby, Griffey was hoping to see Giancarlo Stanton and Bryce Harper, but Stanton is injured and Harper isn't participating.

"The person who has more pop than anyone I've ever seen — Giancarlo," he said. "That's the most pop I've ever seen. He's definitely in that Bam-Bam group."

But he said he still expects a heck of a show.

"Somebody's going to hit it out of the ballpark, if there's a left-handed hitter, they're going to hit it out," Griffey said. "Now this is more important than the game itself."