Ken Griffey Jr. Still Has It - Takes Batting Practice In Front Of Team USA

The kid's still got it!

Ken Griffey Jr. stepped into the batting cage during Friday's Team USA World Baseball Classic practice and it was AWESOME.

The coolest part? Even the younger players understood just how important and how damn GOOD Griffey was and apparently still is at baseball.

Oh, and the fact that he can STILL hit home runs.

The makeshift hitting performance came as Griffey has been doing his fair share of helping the players throughout the World Baseball Classic. Griffey himself had been part of USA's inaugural World Baseball Classic back in 2006, where he hit three home runs throughout the tournament.

The team had been encouraging him and riffing on him to take some swings throughout the past few weeks before he finally agreed to on Friday for a few minutes. Los Angeles Angels All-Sar Mike Trout gave him his batting gloves, while the Dodgers Mookie Betts let Griffey use his bat to show off how talented he still is.

“We were hoping. We were begging. And then he did it," Trout told reporters after.

On his final swing, Griffey jacked one to the right field bleachers like he had done 630 times throughout his playing career.

GRIFFEY WAS INDUCTED IN THE HALL OF FAME IN 2016

As a lifelong baseball fan, I think sometimes people forget just how good Ken Griffey Jr. was. Since he played in Seattle nearly his whole entire life, he never got that New York or LA notoriety, but man was he awesome to watch.

If he had been playing in today's social media age, his swing - which is STILL the smoothest in all of baseball would be all over the place.

We'd also have another generation of ballplayers purposely wearing their hat backwards to emulate him anyway they possibly could.

As far as Team USA goes, you can watch them tonight in the World Baseball Classic quarterfinals when they play Venezuela at 7pm ET on FOX.

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Mike “Gunz” Gunzelman has been involved in the sports and media industry for over a decade. He’s also a risk taker - the first time he ever had sushi was from a Duane Reade in Penn Station in NYC.