Many Rookie Names Will Have Familiar Ring This Season

Following in your father’s footsteps is never easy, and it can be even harder if it’s down the first-base line.

Rose, Griffey, Alou, Bonds, Stottlemyre, Alomar, and Hundley. A lineup for a future old-timers game? Perhaps. But right now they are the sons of former major leaguers trying to make a name of their own.

Doing things on their own is something the sons of major leaguers have gotten use to. Most of them played catch with mom in the backyard -- or a brick wall -- while their fathers went to work. And often the most they saw of their dads was on television or in the papers.

Still, they inherited a rare talent to play big league baseball.

Pete Rose and Ken Griffey were part of Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine” that won consecutive World Series in 1975 and 1976. Now, their sons are on the way up.

Barry Bonds, Todd Stottlemyre, and Roberto Alomar are already in the majors, and Sandy Alomar Jr., Todd Hundley and Moises Alou aren’t far away. And Bob Boone, the son of Ray Boone, has a son on a baseball scholarship at USC.

While the 38-year-old Griffey is hanging on for another season, his 19-year-old son, Ken Griffey Jr., has broken into the Seattle Mariners’ starting lineup after an outstanding spring.

Griffey Jr., the Mariners’ top pick in 1987, started last season with San Bernardino of the California League, hitting .338 with 11 homers, 42 RBIs and 32 stolen bases in 58 games.

This year, Griffey was slated for Triple-A, but now is likely to start in center field.

“I’m always there if he needs advice,” his father said. “But he has the talent to make it without me.”

If the Griffeys both make it this year, it would be the first time a father and son have played in the majors at the same time.

“He talks about it,” Griffey Jr. said. “You can’t get him to stop sometimes. He’s my father, so I can’t say ‘Dad, I’ve got to go now.’ I listen to him.”

Rose, 19, was a 12th-round selection by Baltimore last June out of Oak Hills High in Cincinnati. His father is baseball’s all-time hit leader (4,256) and a probable member of the Hall of Fame.

“I don’t think there’s pressure to be as good as my father because nobody expects that,” Rose said.

Like his father, Rose made himself into a ballplayer with hustle.

“I grew up around baseball and my father always talked about it,” Rose said. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”

While his father always talks about baseball, it’s not always to his son.

“He said he’d try to see me play but I know that means he won’t come,” Rose told Gentleman’s Quarterly magazine. “Even if I wanted to call him, I don’t have his telephone number. I have to call his agent, and he tells my dad I want to talk to him. We don’t get in touch unless my dad wants to. Still I love him. He’s my dad.”

Some were surprised that the Reds did not draft Rose.

“It wouldn’t have been fair,” his father said. “I would have been tougher on him and he deserves an equal shot.”

Cal Ripken Sr. managed his sons in Baltimore, Cal and Billy, and both were angry when he was fired last April after the Orioles opened the season 0-6.

Pete Rose II already has his future stardom mapped out and it’s predicated on his father remaining as manager of the Reds.

“I have a dream that the Orioles are playing the Reds in the World Series and I hit a grand slam home run in the ninth inning of game seven,” Rose told the AP. “I don’t think my dad would be completely happy but my mom would.”

Like Pete Rose II, Barry Bonds didn’t have a lot of help from his father on the way up.

In his second season with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1988, Bonds hit .283 with 24 homers, 58 RBIs and 17 stolen bases.

“I never pressured Barry into baseball,” Bobby Bonds said. “He just had the talent.”

Bobby Bonds reached the 30-30 club (homers and stolen bases) a record five times in his career.

“I think I have a shot at 30-30 someday,” Barry said. “I have to cut down on strikeouts.

“My father never pushed me into being a baseball player. I just did that on my own.”

Alou, a Pirate prospect, could hardly miss being a baseball player.

His father, Felipe Alou, and uncles, Matty and Jesus, once started in the same outfield for the San Francisco Giants.

He was drafted from a California junior college in 1986 and hit .313 for Augusta of the South Atlantic League last year.

Scouts say Alou has quick wrists and has a hitting style similar to uncle Matty, who had his best years in Pittsburgh.

“I have gotten a lot of advice on little things,” Alou said. “But no matter who your father is if you can’t hit it doesn’t matter.”

San Diego’s Sandy Alomar Jr. is one of the most sought after catching prospects in baseball. Last season, he hit .297 with 16 homers and 71 RBIs for Triple-A Las Vegas.

His father, now a coach with the Padres, played for 15 years and led the American League in at-bats with 689 in 1971 while a member of the California Angels.

“Playing on the same team with my brother and my father coaching is something I didn’t expect,” Sandy said. “My brother and I didn’t really see my father play. I think of him more as a coach.”

For 14 years, Randy Hundley was a standout defensive catcher and spent his most productive years with the Chicago Cubs from 1966-1973. His son, Todd, is considered one of the New York Mets’ top catching prospects.

“My father has helped a lot with the mechanics of being a catcher,” said Hundley, 19. “He told me good catchers can make it faster in the the majors and I think I’ll be ready soon.”

The Mets say defensively Hundley is already major-league material but he needs work on his hitting.

Todd Stottlemyre got off to a shaky start with the Toronto Blue Jays (4-8, 5.69) last season and was demoted to Triple-A Syracuse.

In the minors, Stottlemyre looked a lot more like his father, Mel, going 5-0 with a 2.05 earned-run average.

This season, he looks even more like his father on the mound. He’s changed his number to 30.