Ken Griffey, Jr. Hangs 'Em Up

On Wednesday, Ken Griffey, Jr. announced his retirement from Major League Baseball. Griffey, now 41, has been in the Majors since he was 18 years old, and for the better part of those years, he was a force to be reckoned with. His age and a prime that was riddled with injuries finally took their toll, slowing Griffey down to an occasional pinch hitter, a role he wasn’t willing to accept. He will likely take a place in the Mariner front office next year and hopefully stay close to the game.

Ken Griffey, Jr. was, arguably, the best baseball player in the game during the 90s. He could do everything. He hit for average and power, drove in a ton of runs, and fielded his position with a flair that few have ever possessed. His baseball IQ was off the charts, the mark of a bright kid raised in the game under the tutelage of Ken Griffey, Sr., himself a Major League all-star. Junior always seemed to know what his team needed of him. If that was a monster home run, he’d send it to the parking lot. If it was a sac fly, he was willing to do that, too. And if that meant giving up his body crashing through the outfield wall tracking down a ball, Griffey was more than happy to oblige.

I came late to sports and the only major American sport I didn’t immediately embrace was baseball. As a youngster I played a season of tee-ball that was excruciating. I was the right fielder (aka “worst player”) on a team that didn’t win a game all season. Even trying to watch baseball was too much effort for me. The game was too boring, too much standing around. Then two things happened: Barry Bonds got out of baseball purgatory (Pittsburgh) and signed on with a real team in the Giants. And I caught sight of Ken Griffey, Jr.

In the near future, when Barry Bonds dies, (from complications of steroids or at the hands of an angry ex-girlfriend) I’ll have a column on my other baseball favorite. (I’ve been writing it in my head for years.) But for today, it’s all Griffey. Griffey played the game in a way that I, as a self-professed baseball hater, had never seen. He was one of the rare athletes who could pull off a smooth swagger without coming across as arrogant or cocky. He knew how incredible he was but The Kid genuinely loved baseball, loved playing the game. He always seemed like he was having fun and that, unfortunately, is a rarity. Griffey was exciting in a sport that was, for me, terribly unexciting.

And then there was that swing. From the very first time I saw Griffey swing the bat I knew it was something special. I once knew a guy who claimed that everyone had one quality or skill that was truly God-given; one thing that they were great at. You might be really, really good at a lot of things, but there was one thing that set you apart. Griffey was an outstanding all around baseball player, but that swing was a gift. It was the purest swing I have ever seen. If I started training my kid at age two to swing the bat and paid for all the best coaches that money could buy and took him to other countries to get radical surgeries that turned him into some type of mutant with the strength of a silverback gorilla and the joint dexterity of a pterodactyl (I don’t even know what that means), he would still be miles behind Griffey. His swing was perfect.

In the 1995 divisional playoff series against the Yankees, Griffey went off for five home runs and seven RBIs with a .391 batting average. He and pitcher Randy Johnson single handedly (double handedly?) torched the Yankees and even a baseball moron like myself knew it was just right to hate the Yankees. I was hooked. Year after year Griffey racked up home runs, Gold Gloves, and wins against my hometown Rangers. One of the saddest days of my Sports Life was the day Griffey was traded to Cincinnati, a National League team that only rolls through town once every six years. And then Griffey’s body betrayed him. Injuries are a part of sport, to be sure, but what happened to Griffey was unjust. THE player of the 90s became a spectator for much of the 2000s. He spent the better part of his prime on the disabled list and never could quite regain form. Yet when he was able to get on the field, things still stopped down every time he came to bat because you knew there was still a chance you were going to see something special.

I was at a Rangers-Mariners game earlier this season and Griffey happened to be in the lineup as the DH. It had been a while since I had seen him in person and the change was pretty evident. Even if you didn’t know his age, you would know he was close to the end of his career. Yet every time he came to bat, I found myself holding my breath, knowing (or maybe hoping) that he could still do something special. The end was near for Griffey and we all knew it but I swear to you, every member of that pro-Ranger crowd hoped he’d get one more at bat, one more chance to show us something spectacular, even if it cost the home team the game. On one pitch he unleashed that beautiful, perfect swing…and missed a home run by a tenth of an inch, popping up harmlessly to second. An unspectacular ending for one of the most spectacular players this game will ever see.

Griffey finished his career with over 2700 hits and 1800 RBIs, appeared in 13 All Star games, and won 10 gold gloves, seven Silver Sluggers, and an MVP trophy. He also happened to pop 630 home runs, the fifth most in MLB history and without the injuries I whole heartedly believe his name would sit atop that list. And he did it all clean. In an era that was ripe with steroid usage, Griffey’s name has never once even been associated with performance enhancing drugs. When you consider the juiced-up competition he was going up against, his numbers and his impact are even more astounding. More importantly for this writer, Ken Griffey, Jr. represented the entire sport of baseball for a 12 year old boy who’d written the sport off entirely. Ken Griffey, Jr. WAS baseball for me and I will be forever grateful for that.

Seriously disappointed in the lack of attention this retirement has gotten,
Brian