Trades Of The Decade: Griffey To The Reds

When the Mariners traded away the best player in the game a month into the new millennium, they didn't appear to have obtained much in return. They gave up Ken Griffey Jr.: an All-Star and Gold Glove winner every year of the 1990s and a member of the All-Century team. At the time, Jake Meyer, Antonio Perez, Brett Tomko and Mike Cameron didn't seem like enough of a haul for Griffey. In the days following the trade, Michael Knisley of the Sporting News wrote that the Mariners "got fleeced last week more completely than Bo Peep's lost sheep at shearing time. For Junior Griffey, the man most likely to break Hank Aaron's all-time home run record, the game's most perfect all-around player in the prime of his career, the Reds gave Seattle ... bits and pieces, drips and drabs of major leaguers and wanna-bes." But Mariners GM Pat Gillick was cornered because Griffey became restless and demanded a trade in November of 1999. He had just one year and $8...