As if 630 home runs and a trip to the Hall of Fame were not enough, Ken Griffey Jr. has taken up a new activity since he retired in 2010: photography.
Most recently he was spotted taking pictures at the Masters where he captured an image of the winner, Rory McIlroy, celebrating on his knees that spread quickly online. But Griffey, a.k.a. the Kid, has been shooting for years in the sporting and non-sporting realms.
“Because I played baseball, then I’m not allowed to do anything else?” Griffey, 55, said in an interview. “They see me as one thing; that’s not necessarily who I am.”
Griffey tries to bring the perseverance he showed on the diamond to his life behind the lens. “What I’m trying to do is get better at something that I really enjoy doing,” he said. “I didn’t start off in the big leagues,” he added. “If you’re willing to learn and put in time, you’re going to get better.”
While at the Masters, Griffey picked up tips from professional photographers. “It really helped me understand about what’s in the foreground, the background: Will it be a distraction? If you asked me that 10 years ago, I’m fine, I don’t care what the background is. But now I’m looking at it.”