Hall of Fame Slugger in Seoul as Special Photographer

As the 2024 Major League Baseball season began at the Gocheok SkyDome in Seoul, South Korea, on Wednesday, Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. was on site serving as a special photographer.

Since retiring, Griffey has taken up photography as a hobby and has had the opportunity to work a variety of sporting events like an NFL game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Arizona Cardinals and Game 5 of last year’s World Series between the Texas Rangers and the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Coincidentally, he isn’t the only Hall of Famer or former Seattle Mariner to have taken a liking to photography. Randy Johnson has also been spotted at a few professional sporting events in his post-playing career as well.

Griffey has been working hard throughout spring training. According to Jordan Shusterman of Yahoo! Sports, he was hired as a photographer at a Topps event in February to capture the moments of some young players signing various editions of their own cards.

“They pulled us aside, and they’re like, ‘We’re gonna take some photos,'” Kyle Harrison of the San Francisco Giants told Yahoo Sports. “And as we’re walking up the stairs, we’re like, who’s taking them?

“Oh — it’s Ken Griffey Jr.”

Griffey’s hobby began in 2009 when he took pictures of his kids playing sports. It gave him the freedom to feel like a normal parent.

“And then it just snowballed,” he told Yahoo! Sports. “My friends who work at ESPN in the photography department would be like, ‘Hey, you need this camera.’ And it just became bigger and bigger and bigger.”

Griffey spent 22 years in the big leagues with the Mariners, Cincinnati Reds, and Chicago White Sox. He was a lifetime .284 hitter with 630 career home runs, was a 13-time All-Star, a 10-time Gold Glover, a seven-time Silver Slugger, and a former MVP. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame as a member of the 2016 class.