Ken Griffey Jr.

When the great Ted Williams sat down to write the book The Science of Hitting with co-author John Underwood, he talked about what it took to be a great hitter—from theory to mechanics to application.

In his other book, My Turn At Bat, Williams also said, "A man has to have goals—for a day, for a lifetime—and that was mine, to have people say, 'There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived.'"

By many accounts, Williams reached his goal.

We've all seen it: the signature move.  Many great baseball players have displayed them time and time again throughout their careers, and through them they make the game look easy.

There are the great moves, and then there are the weird ones, which baseball fans of all generations have seen as well.

Here's a list of the best, and strangest signature moves from players in the game today, as well as a few from the annals of history.

One of the great characteristics about the game of baseball is that families enjoy it together, whether a father taking his son to his first big league game, or fathers, sons and brothers sharing baseball on the diamond.

A father's pride.  A son's rise to stardom in his father's footsteps.  Brothers bonding on the diamond.  These timeless themes have captivated baseball fans for generations.

Here now is a ranking of the greatest baseball families ever.

Barry Bonds awaits his fate in a federal courthouse in San Francisco for allegedly lying about knowingly using steroids.

During their primes Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey, Jr. were the two greatest hitters of their era. Both second generation ballplayers, having famous fathers who had enjoyed their own successful careers, Bonds and Griffey were lifelong acquaintances that had similar career paths, and comparable numbers through their prime.

While their paths to Major League Baseball were similar, their legacies would wind up very different.

For the first time since Richard Nixon was president, no big league team will break spring training camp with a Ken Griffey on its roster—Senior or Junior.

Every April from 1974 through 2010, there was a Ken Griffey in the majors. First it was the original Griffey—Senior—who broke into the bigs with the Cincinnati Reds and who kept playing until his baby boy grew up and was old enough to be his teammate with the Seattle Mariners in 1990.

Legendary New York Yankees Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle was without a doubt one of the best center fielders that ever played the game of baseball. His five-tool skills, combining hitting for average, hitting for power, base running skills and speed, throwing ability and fielding abilities were matched only by Willie Mays and Ken Griffey Jr.

With the news on Friday that graceful center fielder Jim Edmonds is retiring from the game of baseball after a stellar 17-year career, the talk of whether or not Edmonds is worthy of induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame can begin.

While Edmonds was absolutely a human highlight reel during the height of his playing days, injuries severely curtailed his career in the latter years. He ended up  sitting out the 2009 season altogether due to nagging leg injuries.

Ken Griffey, Jr. has rejoined the Mariners as a special consultant. I don't really know what a special consultant does, and there's no telling if Shannon Drayer's account tells the full story.

While Greg Johns of MLB.com reports that the role is "evolving," you need not wait further. I just got the inside scoop.

The Seattle Mariners recently signed Moises Hernandez to a minor league contract. Not a huge deal, right? Well, he's the brother of reigning AL Cy Young Felix Hernandez.

I'll get into more specifics on that later in the next slide.

I started to think, though. How many other brother combinations have there been, and often did the shared genes translated to shared talent? The best duo was Lloyd and Paul Waner, who are both hall of famers.