Father’s Day has special significance in baseball. Like a beloved family heirloom, the game is passed down from generation to generation.
Through the years, sons of prominent ballplayers have carried on the family legacy by reaching the big leagues. Often, these players hit home runs that connect the generations on a symbolic level.
Below are the greatest father-son home run moments in major league history.
The Fielders had the same home run total
Prince Fielder and his father Cecil have a notoriously rocky relationship. The similarities between the two are hard to ignore: both were beefy first basemen who could hit a ball a country mile and whose careers took them to Detroit. Prince, who crushed balls into Tiger Stadium’s upper deck as a twelve-year-old, was groomed to be a home run champion from an early age.
But as much as he may have resembled a left-handed hitting version of his father, the younger Fielder was eager to emerge from Cecil’s shadow.
The Fielders were estranged for many years, a situation that stemmed from Cecil’s gambling problem and divorce from Prince’s mother. According to Prince, Cecil also took $200,00 of Prince’s initial signing bonus from the Brewers without his permission. Prince was well on his way to having a more successful career than his father, until a debilitating neck injury forced him to call it quits at the age of thirty-two.
Coincidentally, he would retire with 319 career homers, the same total as his dad.
The Guerreros left their mark by the bay
Remember how much hype there was surrounding Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s major league debut in April of 2019? As a teenage prospect, Guerrero was the first player to receive a perfect 80 out of 80 on his “hit” tool rating from MLB Pipeline. Simply put, scouts thought his bat-to-ball skills were just about flawless.
Vlad Jr. was such an advanced hitter that few would have predicted a slump to begin his big league career. Guerrero got off to a shockingly slow start, hitting just .191 with two extra-base hits (both doubles) and one RBI through his first 13 games with the Blue Jays.
Then, on May 14th, Vlad Jr. finally turned on the power. That night, the third baseman went deep twice at San Francisco’s Oracle Park for his first two roundtrippers as a big leaguer.
Guerrero’s multi-homer performance evoked memories of his Hall of Fame father. Vlad Jr. was just eight years old when he witnessed his father win the 2007 Home Run Derby in San Francisco. Twelve years after that derby victory, it was the younger Vlad who made the very same spacious ballpark look small.
MLB THE SHOW FANS: If you’re enjoying this father-son trivia, be sure to play the Father’s Day player program in the game. For more MLB The Show coverage, click here
Barry Bonds Honored His Father with a Walk-Off Splash hit
Surly, stubborn, egotistical, downright rude.
These are just some of the words one might use to describe Barry Bonds, especially his attitude toward others. Bonds has a superiority complex, and his public statements drip with arrogance and condescension.
Bonds may be an asshole, but even assholes have emotional weak spots. For Bonds, his father Bobby is just that. Before Barry carried on the family legacy, Bobby was an outfielder for fourteen major league seasons, including seven with the San Francisco Giants.
Bobby was actually the first family member to join the “30-30” club, when he clubbed 32 homers and swiped 45 bags for the Giants in 1969. All in all, Bobby produced five seasons of 30+ homers and 30+ steals, setting a major league record that his son would eventually match.
In recent years, Barry Bonds has opened up about his relationship with his father. Barry never received much praise from his dad, so he spent much of his career trying to prove he was worthy of the Bonds name. In 2003, when Bobby’s health deteriorated due to complications from lung cancer and a brain tumor, Barry spent time away from the Giants to attend to his ailing father. In his return to action, Barry lined a laser beam into McCovey Cove to beat the Braves.
Unfortunately for Bonds, his father passed away just four days after that game-winning blast.
The Griffeys Went Back-to-Back
When it comes to father-son moments in MLB history, no one can top the Griffeys. In 1990, Ken Griffey Sr., a former member of the Big Red Machine, was released by Cincinnati after batting .206 with one home run over 46 games. He was quickly picked up by the Seattle Mariners, the team that employed his son, fellow outfielder Ken Griffey Jr.
Together, the Griffeys became the first father-son duo to be major league teammates.
At 40 years old, Griffey Sr. was nearing the end of his playing days, while his 20-year-old son was at the beginning of his career. Although Griffey Sr. was clearly on the decline, this unexpected family reunion led to a brief resurgence.
In Griffey Sr.’s first game with the Mariners, father and son hit back-to-back singles in the first inning. Two weeks later, the Griffeys outdid themselves in epic fashion. With the Mariners in Anaheim, Seattle manager Jim Lefebvre placed Griffey Sr. and Griffey Jr. in the second and third spots of the batting order, respectively.
That evening, Senior and Junior made even more history by hitting back-to-back home runs in the first inning. The moment presented a potent metaphor, as the younger Griffey literally followed in his father’s footsteps when he trotted around the bases.
The connection between the Griffeys was also on display when Junior gave his father an unforgettable Father’s Day gift in 2004. On June 20th of that year, the Kid went deep against the Cardinals to become just the twentieth member of the 500 home run club. After touching home plate, Junior approached his parents in the stands and hugged his dad to wish him a happy Father’s Day.
Said Griffey Jr., “My dad hit 152 home runs and that’s the person I wanted to be like. My hero growing up. That’s the person who taught me how to play and is still telling me how to play.”
Searle’s Final Say
The relationship between fathers and sons has created some truly beautiful baseball moments. Sons learn the game from their fathers, and later pass that knowledge on to their own children. Each generation is thus connected by a common thread: a passion for baseball and its history. Many of baseball’s current young stars — including Cody Bellinger, Bo Bichette, and Fernando Tatis Jr. — have fathers who were big leaguers. The recent influx of second-generation ballplayers all but guarantees that there will be more touching father-son moments to come.
