The Kid who saved Seattle baseball, Ken Griffey Jr.

Ken Griffey Jr.  The Kid.  Junior.  The Natural.

Regardless of the title, it is well known that when those names are uttered, the person being spoken about is one of the best baseball players of all time. Those nicknames are said with a certain reverence in baseball circles, almost as if baseball were a religion and Griffey were its savior.  

Griffey might have saved baseball after the strike in 1994. 

In that strike shortened season, there was no postseason. There was no World Series. The hopes and dreams of athletes young and old were, at minimum, put on hold if not shattered completely. Goose Gossage and Bo Jackson never played in another game. Michael Jordan returned to the NBA.  Tony Gwynn was on pace for one of the best seasons in the history of the game.  The Montreal Expos were 74-40 when the strike happened.  

Would the Expos have won the World Series? Would there still be a team in Montreal or would they still have been moved to Washington D.C. in 2005, giving the D.C. area a team for the first time since the Senators moved and became the Texas Rangers? 

The passion for the game was gone.  Replacement players littered MLB rosters and the pros came back feeling as if they were just a commodity. Fans, young and old, were at a loss for why there was an eighth work stoppage in the middle of the season.  

Then came the 1995 ALDS. East Coast vs. West Coast. The Seattle Mariners were down two games to none. Then, the Mariners tied the series at two a piece. Game 5. After a back and forth affair between the Mariners and Yankees, Edgar Martinez came up to bat in the bottom of the 11th. 

Go back and re-watch the final hit. The way Griffey pops up from the game winning slide and is mobbed by his teammates, the way the announcer loses his mind and speaks with a raspy excitement, the celebration of the fans; it's magical. The emotions Seattle's fan base may have never been stronger than when Edgar Martinez laced that ball down the left field line and Griffey rounded third, slid into home, and the reality of the situation set in. Baseball was back and the Mariners were not the perennial punching bag they had been in previous seasons.  

Just three years later, the 1998 season started with a three-way race toward Roger Maris’ home run record. Unfortunately, Griffey had some minor injuries that pulled him off the record setting pace that Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire had set. Griffey finished 1998 with 56 HRs, 147 RBIs, and 125 runs. Sosa and McGwire finished with 66 and 70 home runs respectively. 

Griffey never had the same productive stat line after he left Seattle in 2000 to join the Cincinnati Reds to be closer to his family. He never hit over 40 home runs again. He never played in more than 145 games again. He had more than 100 RBI’s once and scored 100 runs once after leaving the confines of Safeco. While his stat line post-Seattle may not be the most inspiring, his impact on the game is impossible to overstate.

Junior played for three teams in his career – the Seattle Mariners (twice), the Cincinnati Reds, and the Chicago White Sox. His career stat line is like something out of a storybook; .284 batting average, 2,781 hits, 630 HRs, 1,836 RBI’s, 13 All Star nods, 10 consecutive Gold Gloves, seven Silver Sluggers, an MVP award, and he set the record for voting percentage to get into the MLB Hall of Fame at 99.3%. He’s also a member of the Cincinnati Reds and Seattle Mariners Hall of Fame. 

Three people didn’t think Griffey deserved to get into the Hall of Fame on his first ballot for some unknown reason. Maybe it has to do with the fact that he wore his baseball hat backward and wasn’t a catcher?  My high school science teacher, Mr. Gingrich, who was also a baseball coach at Oak Grove High School, had that gripe. You could wear hats in his classroom, but they had to be front facing unless you were a catcher. Clearly Mr. Gingrich was an old school guy who grew up in a time where the way you wore your hat could be seen as a sign of rebellion.  

Maybe Gingrich lucked into a Hall of Fame vote? Doubtful, but really? Given the career stat line above, the fact that he was the face of baseball for years, and changed the way baseball is played and viewed, how could someone possibly not vote for him?

Griffey was young and exciting. He played the game “the right way” and had more fun on a baseball field than most people have doing everything else in their lives combined. His smile lit up entire stadiums. His speed and athleticism allowed him to make jaw dropping plays and his offensive prowess was something to behold. He had the prettiest left-handed swing in the game and had power to spare. Griffey is still the only player to hit the warehouse beyond the right field wall at Camden Yards on the fly.  

August 6, 2016 was an important day because that was the day the Mariners did what should have been done June 3, 2010, the day after The Kid retired from the game that he dedicated his life and body to for 22 years professionally and many more growing up. On August 6, the Mariners retired the number of Ken Griffey Jr. The Mariners haven’t assigned that number to a player or coach since Griffey stopped wearing it, but now it will be official - from their rookie team in the Arizona League all the way to 1516 1st Avenue South, Seattle, Washington where the House that Griffey built sits today.