Fred McGriff
American Hall of Fame baseball player

Frederick Stanley McGriff (born October 31, 1963) is an American former first baseman in Major League Baseball (MLB) who played for six teams from 1986 through 2004. Nicknamed "Crime Dog", a word play on McGruff the Crime Dog, he was one of the most consistently productive power hitters of the 1990s. McGriff posted over 80 runs batted in (RBI) every year from 1988 through 2002, and became the first player since the dead-ball era to lead both leagues in home runs — the American League (AL) in 1989 and the National League (NL) in 1992. A five-time All-Star, he was named the Most Valuable Player of the 1994 contest after his pinch-hit home run in the bottom of the ninth inning tied the score at 7–7, with the NL winning in 10 innings. McGriff finished in the top ten in voting for his league's Most Valuable Player Award every year from 1989 through 1994, during which time he led the major leagues in home runs.
After spending the first third of his career with the Toronto Blue Jays and San Diego Padres, McGriff became a major component in the Atlanta Braves' long run of division champions, posting over 90 RBI for five straight years after joining the club in a midseason 1993 trade, and helped lead the team to the 1995 World Series title over the Cleveland Indians. In 50 career postseason games, McGriff batted .303 with 10 home runs and 37 RBI. He then joined his hometown Tampa Bay Devil Rays when that club was established in 1998, and was the team's main power hitter for its first four seasons, establishing various franchise records which lasted several years before being broken. He hit 20 or more home runs fifteen times, becoming the first player to hit 30 home runs with five different teams, drove in 100 runs eight times, and batted .300 four times.
McGriff's 493 career home runs were tied for tenth in major league history among left-handed hitters when he retired, and put him only seven away from joining the 500 home run club; his 462 home runs as a first baseman ranked fourth. He also ended his career with 1,550 RBI, and a .509 slugging percentage.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Fred McGriff” is american Hall of Fame baseball player. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Fred, McGriff and American, not as a finished interpretation.
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Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2726999. VIAF identifies the subject as 6682167565616098750000. The Library of Congress control number is no2023011458. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1963, 1986, 2004 and 1988.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fred McGriff” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.