One of my most pleasant baseball memories was a summer night in the mid-90's in the bleachers of Yankee Stadium. The Mariners were in town, it was a good rivalry at the time and the crowd was in full-throated splendor. Jay Buhner and Ken Griffey were getting razzed all night long and Buhner just stared toward home plate, never looking back. Griffey, though, would turn his head every now and then, grinning and that just got the crowd going more. Late in the game, a ball went into the right-centerfield gap and Griffey dove to make a splendid catch. After returning the ball to the infield he turned to the bleachers, put his glove on his left hand and spun it while smiling even wider. The bleachers had no choice but to applaud him.
I thought of that today after reading Sportphile's excellent breakdown of the media's ignorance of his upcoming 600th home run.
I believe this is so unfair and hypocritical because Ken Griffey may be the first player in the last 35 years to reach 600 without cheating. He's being forced to quietly make history in the shadows.
As much negative press ESPN gave Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa for their alleged steroid use, you'd think they would take the initiative and celebrate a man who did things the right way.Griffey hit homer no. 597 last night against Houston and, barring another injury, should get there well before Memorial Day.
At the end of the day, it's guys like Griffey who suffered the most from the steroid era. All of the attention and scrutiny paid to players like Bonds, Sosa and Mark McGwire overshadow the fact that Griffey's piled up some incredible numbers with no reason to suspect outside influence. Injuries have held him down for long stretches but given all the players who've used that as a crutch to support their steroid use, isn't that even more reason to laud his accomplishments at this point in time?
The worst thing you could ever say about Griffey is that he used too much nerve tonic and that he spoiled the world from the first 12-year old World Series winning manager and both of those things are fictional. It'd be nice if one iota of the time spent planning an ambush of a player with his birth certificate or covering everything Barry Bonds ever did was spent giving Griffey one last spin in the spotlight.
(H/T The Big Lead)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-24-2008 @ 8:55PM
Warren said...
Bonds is such a BOZO ,just like his Caucasian counterpart
Pete "the Maggot " Rose
Go Nationals
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4-24-2008 @ 11:27PM
peet said...
I like Griffey as much as the next guy.....but how is that we're *postive* he 'did it the right way'?
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4-24-2008 @ 11:51PM
yellow said...
If Griffey had taken steroids, he never would've missed so many games!!!!!!
The roids are the only reason Bonds is able to play at this age, no way he would be able to recover from the wear and tear of a season without them.
Griffey would've shattered every single record if he had been a user!!!!!!!!! No doubt!!!!!
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4-25-2008 @ 12:10AM
George B Vieto said...
ESPN will not give Ken Griffey Junior his just due for breaking into the 600 home run club because Ken is not a controversial sports figure and thus he is not considered newsworthy.
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4-25-2008 @ 12:17AM
zack.marker said...
yellow - If we want to speculate, you can say that the reason Griffey was injured so often could be from steroid use. The types of injuries that plagued him so often, hamstring pulls/tears typically, are common among users.
Now I know that Griffey has never been tied to it, but neither had Clemens for quite a while.
http://thesteroidera.blogspot.com/2006/08/correlation-between-steroids-injuries.html
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4-25-2008 @ 12:20AM
T said...
A milestone would be Griffey playing a full season without a major injury.
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4-25-2008 @ 12:19AM
tien said...
A++ for the Simpsons reference.
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4-25-2008 @ 12:58AM
Gary said...
I think a lot of it is the disappointment that he could have been even more prolific if it wasn't for injuries. We too often think of what might have been with Griffey.
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4-25-2008 @ 9:41AM
GB said...
Agreed, we'll never know EXACTLY who did and didn't use steroids, but as it now appears, Griffey and Frank Thomas are the two biggest "losers" in the steroid era, two guys with HOF careers who have been overshadowed by the juicers.
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4-25-2008 @ 10:10AM
JAlper said...
Zack - It's true about the link between steroids and certain injuries. Some of which Griffey's had but some, like broken wrists from slamming into outfield fences, which are completely unrelated. We'll never know about anyone for sure but given the amount of players fingered and amount of information flowing, it's a good sign for Griffey that he's never been implicated. Clemens, on the other hand, was always the subject of rumors.
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4-26-2008 @ 12:58PM
jen said...
if fans really want Griffy to get the coverage he should be getting, just like A-Rod got last year when he was about to reach his milestone than Fans should make some noise, start writting emails to ESPN, bring posters to the stadium sending them a message ect.
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4-29-2008 @ 4:36PM
Darrin Kemp said...
I feel bad for Jr. Griffey.Consider if he hadn't spent what amounts to 4 maybe 5 seasons on the DL he would probably THE all time guy right now.Thats assuming he would have averaged between 35 and 40 homers a year.
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