Kuzul

The day we thought would never come has arrived. Ken Griffey Jr. retired from Major League Baseball. We have watched Ken Griffey Jr. do things unlike any ballplayer in history. Twenty-one years and 630 home runs later, one of the greatest centerfielders of all-time is finally hanging them up.

Ken Griffey Jr. has given us a lifetime’s worth of baseball memories. Some of the best highlights in all of baseball over the last 20 years feature Ken Griffey Jr. From all of his countless great moments, here is a look at the 10 best moments of Ken Griffey Jr.’s career.

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When I was growing up in the ’90s, there was one guy who every young baseball player wished he could be: Ken Griffey Jr.

He made baseball more exciting than anyone else in the game and kept my short attention span focused on a slow-paced sport.

I remember playing wiffle ball in my backyard, imitating Griffey’s swing, even though I was right-handed—that smooth left-handed swing with the one-handed follow-through, the prettiest swing in the history of baseball.

The way the guy played the game was amazing. He really was the first baseball player in his era to make the sport cool for a younger audience—an audience that had options to follow other action-packed sports. Griffey brought the action to baseball, steering the younger crowd towards the great sport of baseball.

I know this was the case, because I grew up in a time when football was emerging as the most popular sport in America. The one thing that kept me glued to baseball was the excitement that Griffey brought to the ballpark every night.

When Griffey would participate in the home run derby every year, everyone watched. He was the coolest cat out there with his backwards hat. He brought a certain swagger to a sport that had been lacking an attractive attitude for younger fans.

I wasn’t a Mariners fan, but Griffey was one of my favorite players. If it wasn’t for him, I might not be following the New York Mets the way I do today. He is the reason that I grew up with baseball.

If he never got hurt, there is no doubt in my mind that he would have broken the home run record and would have gone down as one of the statistically great players ever. 

We all know how important statistics are to baseball purists, so those of you that are statistically driven, don’t read this next part. 

I don’t care what the stats say—Ken Griffey Jr. was the greatest ever to play the game.

There was never anyone to play center field the way he did, and there weren’t many that were as physically gifted. If you just watched the way Griffey played the game, you didn’t need to look at statistics to know that he was the greatest outfielder ever. Based solely on the eyeball test, Griffey is the greatest ever.

The overall production of his career will land him in the Baseball Hall of Fame, without a doubt. But those numbers don’t do justice to what he brought to the sport every day.

And we all know the greatest baseball video game ever is Major League Baseball Featuring Ken Griffey Jr.

I could just keep going on about Griffey’s contributions to the sport, but as a journalist for a college newspaper, I feel that I am not worthy of commemorating a player such as him.

Major League Baseball is in a hangover right now; the sport is decreasing in popularity, whether it be due to the steroid era or the dominance of the NFL. If you go to baseball stadiums nowadays, you rarely see a sold-out crowd, and the TV ratings are down.

Baseball needs another Ken Griffey Jr. to step up and make it exciting again, for the future of the game. However, I don’t know if there’s a player like that right now. Albert Pujols is putting up inhuman numbers, and because of his stats he will go down as one of the greatest ever, but he’s nothing like Griffey.

Baseball needs someone to make the game cool again.

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Last night, as I was sitting at home, I saw the news come across that Ken Griffey Jr., one of the best players in the game, at least in this era, had retired.

I remembered watching his first years in Seattle and being so awestruck by not only his effortless left-handed swing but also by the speed he had in the outfield. He made highlight reel play after highlight reel play that will continue to be watched by the next generation of fans.

Not only that, but he survived the steroid era and proved that a player can be great without using illegal supplements to do it.

His 22 seasons, 630 career home runs, 11 Gold Gloves and 13 All-Star appearances are evidence enough for what kind of player Griffey was. His numbers spoke to the kind of athlete he was on the field, but the way he went out last night spoke to the kind of person he was off the field.

Instead of going out complaining about his lack of playing time or making excuses for the kinds of numbers he was putting up this season, he told the media in a prepared statement that he didn’t want to be a distraction to his teammates. He said that he had told the Mariners, prior to them signing him this season, that he didn’t want to become a bigger story than the team.

So, with that said, Griffey decided that enough was enough and said good-bye to the game that he had dominated for so long. The unfortunate thing for Griffey is that his constant injuries may have kept him out of the 700 home run club and prevented him from putting up bigger career numbers in other categories.

Griffey rode off into the sunset as the top news story in sports last night. It was supposed to be his night. Fans and the media would talk about and celebrate his career, talk about his Hall of Fame potential and just when that phone call might come.

A few hours later, however, another news story made Ken Griffey Jr’.s retirement back page news.

In Detroit young pitcher Armando Galarraga had a perfect game going against the Cleveland Indians. A perfect game saved in the ninth inning thanks to a spectacular catch by outfielder Austin Jackson, a catch that would have made Willie Mays stand up and cheer.

So, with two outs in the ninth inning, Galarraga got Indians’ shortstop Jason Donald to ground just to the right of first baseman Miguel Cabrera. Cabrera fielded it perfectly and flipped it to the covering Galarraga, who beat Donald to the bag.

It should have been a perfect game; it should have been a historic night for the 28-year-old right-hander. Instead, umpire Jim Joyce saw it differently and called Donald safe at first, sending the Detroit fans and players alike into a frenzy.

Tigers’ manager Jim Leyland, along with Galarraga’s teammates, attempted to argue their case to Joyce but to no avail. The call would stand.

After the game, Galarraga tried to answer questions, but he was unquestionably upset about being robbed. Who wouldn’t be?

Even Jason Donald, when asked after the game, told reporters , “I didn’t know if I beat the throw or not. But given the circumstances, I thought for sure I’d be called out.”

Saying all that, most umpires would try to defend themselves and say they got the call right because they don’t want to admit to being wrong. Joe West, are you listening?

But Jim Joyce showed a lot of class by doing exactly the opposite. In fact, he owned up to being wrong while answering questions after the game.

“It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the (stuff) out of it,” Joyce told reporters after the game . “I just cost that kid a perfect game. I thought he beat the throw. I was convinced he beat the throw, until I saw the replay.”

Joyce continued and said he didn’t blame the Tigers one bit for how they felt. “I don’t blame them a bit for anything that was said. I would’ve said it myself if I had been Galarraga. I would’ve been the first person in my face, and he never said a word to me.”

In fact, Joyce took it one step further and sought out Galarraga after he spoke with the media.  He gave the young pitcher a hug, admitted to being wrong, and asked for forgiveness.

“You don’t see an umpire after the game come out and say, `Hey, let me tell you I’m sorry,”’ Galarraga said after talking with Joyce . “He felt really bad. He didn’t even shower.”

That’s a real show of class by an umpire who got the call wrong and changed what could have been one of the highest highs for Armando Galarraga into a “what could have been” kind of night.

Still, I give Joyce a lot of credit for owning up as well as for apologizing to Galarraga personally. It’s not often you see an umpire go to those lengths after a blown call like that.

So, a night that started with the celebration of a great player’s career ended with controversy and anger at an umpire.

The one question that will be burning up the airwaves today, especially in Detroit, is whether there is a need for more instant replay in baseball. Though home runs can be reviewed, that’s as far as the rule goes.

Baseball is already looked at as one of the longest sports out there. Adding more instant replay will only further that opinion, regardless of how much it’s needed.

I think of it this way. How often would instant replay really be used? Does baseball know when to stop? Instant replay could have given young Galarraga a perfect game last night, but what if this one hit had led to an Indians come-from-behind victory? In that instant, do you really take a win away and change the course of one team’s season?

This debate is going to be a hot button topic for a long time to come until either baseball adopts full instant replay or comes to an agreement that it can only be used in situations like this.

Either way, situations like this will continue to rear their ugly head.

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The face of Seattle Mariners has called it quits. Ken Griffey Jr., the once bright-eyed youngster with a million dollar smile and backward hat, ended his career Wednesday, June 2.

Junior was the biggest star of the 1990s and one of the few who did it all naturally, as far as we know. Not once has Griffey even been suspected of doing performance enhancing drugs.

While blasting home runs with a perfect swing that seemed right out of a movie, Griffey’s swing and backward hat were emulated by every kid who loved the game of baseball. While other stars of his era have been accused of using PEDs, it was injuries that derailed a record setting career.

Griffey suffered several injuries early in his career in Seattle chasing down fly balls. After Griffey left the Mariners for the Cincinnati Reds, he saw his 2001-2003 seasons cut short with injuries.

In his heyday in the ’90s, Griffey was the man who save baseball in the Pacific Northwest. One of the defining moments in a hall of fame career was the 1995 American League Division Series.

Seattle was down 2-0 to the New York Yankees. The Mariners came back to tie the series at 2-2.

In the 11th inning of the deciding fifth game, with Griffey on first base, Edgar Martinez, another Mariners great, hit a double. Griffey raced around the bases to score the winning run putting Seattle in the American League Championship series.

In 1995, Griffey famous stated he would never play for the Yankees and cited the way his father and he were treated by the organization. Junior, along with Martinez, Randy Johnson, and Alex Rodriguez, helped sell out the Kingdome.

The Mariners of that era helped get the state legislature to help build the new stadium known as Safeco Field. With Griffey leading the way, many call Safeco “the house Griffey built.”

While in Seattle, Griffey would get his own Super Nintendo game, grace boxes of Wheaties, and become an endorser of Nike. Griffey was to baseball what Michael Jordan was to basketball in the ’90s.

After the 1994 labor dispute, Griffey would excite and bring fans back to baseball with his home run hitting swing. He would lead the Major Leagues with 56 home runs in 1997.

In 2000, Griffey left Seattle to become a Red in his home town of Cincinnati. Griffey would spend the later part of 2008 in Chicago after he was traded to the White Sox.

During his career, Griffey would be named a 13-time All-Star, 10-time Gold Glove winner,  three-time Home Run Derby Champion, and the 1997 MVP. He would have 2,781 hits, a lifetime batting average of .284, and hit 630 home runs.

Earlier this season it was reported that Griffey missed a chance to pinch hit because he was napping. The story caused controversy but was put to rest after the Mariners and Griffey denied the report.

There is no telling what kind of home run numbers Griffey would have put up his is abilities were not slowly robbed by injuries. Early in his career, he was on pace to surpass Hank Aaron on the all-time home run list.

Still, while Junior will not top that list, he will be known as the greatest player in the steroids era. Most of his peers have been accused of using PEDs and cheating the game of baseball.

Nearly all of the star players of the ’90s have been suspected of PED use but Junior. He might be the last player most fans can say with a certain amount of certainty that was the last clean hitter.

As fans, we will never forget how Griffey could chase down a fly ball and run up a wall to steal a home run. No one will ever forget Junior’s backward hat and most of all his perfect home run swing.

After 22 years in the majors, Griffey’s legacy is well cemented and now his Hall of Fame election is all that waits. For baseball fans, there is no joy in Mudville as mighty Junior has walked out.

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Today marks the end of the career of one of most prolific hitters in the history of professional baseball as Ken Griffey, Jr. announced his retirement today after 22 years.

In an official statement, the 40 year-old Griffey stated:

“While I feel I am still able to make a contribution on the field, and nobody in the Mariners front office has asked me to retire, I told the Mariners when I met with them prior to the 2009 season and was invited back, that I will never allow myself to become a distraction. I feel that without enough occasional starts to be sharper coming off the bench, my continued presence as a player would be an unfair distraction to my teammates, and their success as team is what the ultimate goal should be.”

In 33 games this season, Griffey was homerless in 108 plate appearances with a .184 batting average and seven RBI.

It was hard for me to watch him struggle this season — he was a shell of the Ken Griffey Jr. I remember watching as a kid.

He was arguably the most feared hitter in the Major Leagues during the ’90s.

His career achievements include 10 Gold Gloves, 13 All-Star selections, 7 Silver Slugger awards, and an AL MVP award in 1997. He won an ESPY for Male Athlete of the Year in 1998 and was named to the MLB All-Century Team in 1999.

He ranks fifth all-time on the career homerun list behind Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, and Willie Mays. He also scored 1,662 runs, collected 2,781 hits, drove in 1,836 runs, and hit for a .284 average in 2,671 career games.

What makes his numbers more impressive is the fact that Griffey was plagued by injuries in Cincinnati that forced him to miss 260 games from 2002 to 2004.

In his prime, Jr. was a pop culture icon. He starred on the cover of four video games by Nintendo from 1994 to 1999. In 1996, he was a major spokesman for Nike and was the central focus of the company’s “Ken Griffey, Jr. for President” ad campaign.

Griffey also made guest appearances in TV episodes of The Simpsons and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as well as in the movies Little Big League and Summer Catch .

Most importantly, Griffey did it the right way. He has never been linked to steroids or other performance enhancing drugs. His character has never been questioned, and he is still a beloved figure in Seattle and across the Major Leagues.

His playing career might be over, but something tells me he’s not done with the game of baseball. There are plenty of teams that would love to have a guy like him as a bench coach or hitting instructor.

Congratulations on a great career Mr. Griffey—see you in Cooperstown.

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We didn’t want it to end this way. We wanted “Junior,” “The Kid,” “The Man Who Saved Baseball in Seattle.”

We wanted one more laser-fast whip of the bat. We wanted one more smooth shot into the right field seats. We wanted one more ear-to-ear smile. We wanted one more moment to treasure.

We wanted the player of our youth, the stuff of legends.

We didn’t get it. What we got was Joe Namath as a Ram, Willie Mays as a Met, and Franco Harris as a Seahawk.

What we got was a proud athlete who hung around one year too long, unable to accept that his prodigious gifts had diminished to the point where he was no longer able to keep up.

Heck, we didn’t even get the same player as last year, the one who could still catch up to a fastball, the one who changed the Mariners’ poisonous clubhouse culture with his sunny demeanor and playful mischief. What we got was a distraction.

The Mariners may have made a mistake by bringing Griffey back to Seattle, but he wasn’t the only black hole in this lineup, and he’s not keeping the next great thing off the field. It was a gamble, but it was a move the M’s needed to make out of respect to a player who changed the game in so many ways.

Five years from now, when Junior is inducted into the Hall of Fame, the 2010 season will be a blip on his storied career, a distant memory for those who remember his glee as he slid into home to defeat the Yankees, his scaling the wall at the Kingdome to snag a fly ball, his crushing the ball into the upper deck during the “Refuse To Lose” season.

I never had the chance to cover Griffey. As I’ve said before, it remains one of my career disappointments. I moved to Seattle in November of 1999, the year he was shipped off to Cincy. When he returned to Seattle, the fan in me was ecstatic

I was at Safeco the night he hit a game-winning homer against Arizona last season. The crowd went absolutely bonkers, and so did I. On that night, I was a 14-year-old kid again, going bananas for my favorite player. It is a memory I won’t forget.

It didn’t end the way we wanted. It never does. But we will always have our memories. Thanks, Junior.

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The Seattle Mariners have certainly had their struggles thus far this season, as high expectations heading into the year haven’t amounted to much.

The lack of production at the designated hitter slot has been a major issue, and Ken Griffey Jr. finally took action Wednesday, when he officially announced his retirement after a 22-season career that should make him a first-ballot Hall of Famer. 

Griffey’s career has been one for the ages. His 630 home runs are fifth on the all time list, none of which came this season, as he hit a meager .184 with only seven RBI. 

The Kid made his return to the house he built—Safeco Field—last year after nearly a decade spent in Cincinnati, and briefly on the south side of Chicago with the White Sox.

He was a major reason that the Mariners had one of the best turn-around years in the history of MLB, as many players cited his leadership as a major inspiration. His 18 home runs last season didn’t hurt, either, as the Mariners weren’t—and still aren’t—exactly the greatest slugging team in the majors.

After two decades worth of roaming center field and taking a pounding, Griffey’s knees are gone, so his role was reduced to part-time DH—a position hardly fitting for a man who played a major part in the resurgence of baseball in the mid-1990s.

However, Griffey’s leadership was overshadowed by his struggles at the plate, where he clearly was no longer even a fraction of the player that he used to be.

Griffey took the high road in his retirement, and saved the Mariners from a publicity nightmare if they had decided to designate him for assignment. Bottom line is, he’s not the player he used to be, so there’s no shame in retiring midseason. 

Griffey departs the game with class, just as he had his entire career.

Griffey was never once legitimately accused of steroids, and though he leaves the game on a low, albeit quiet note, his decision to hang it up now will not tarnish his legacy as one of the greatest of our generation. 

Griffey, you will be missed.

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The words Frank Sinatra made famous, “I did it my way,” are being sung up in the rainy city as longtime Seattle Mariner, Ken Griffey Jr., decided to call it a career after 22 seasons in the big leagues ending with 630 career home runs.

I remember watching him so many years ago when he first broke into the league. He was the sweet swinging left-hander that made it look so easy. His stroke seemed effortless, yet he could send a ball 500 feet with one swing of the bat.

In total, Griffey played in 1,685 games with Seattle hitting .292 with 417 homers, and 1,216 runs batted in. He is the best player that the Mariners have ever had in their organization, and to think he was their number one overall draft pick back in 1987.

The numbers for Griffey are undoubtedly Hall of Fame worthy. He was an 11-time Gold Glove award winner, a 13-time All Star, a career .284 hitter, had eight seasons of 100 or more RBI, and seven seasons with 40 or more home runs.

I remember always wanting to watch his at bats, regardless of who he played for. I wanted to see the swagger he walked to the plate with, the back and forth motion of the bat as he waited for the pitch and the swing that would send a belt-high fastball deep into the night.

What I respect so much about this future Hall of Famer is the way he went out. He didn’t go out complaining about his lack of playing time, he didn’t go out with excuses of why he didn’t play better than the team expected.

Instead, Griffey was humble and said in a prepared statement that he didn’t want to be a distraction to his teammates.

“While I feel I am still able to make a contribution on the field and nobody in the Mariners front office has asked me to retire,” said Griffey, “I told the Mariners when I met with them prior to the 2009 season and was invited back that I will never allow myself to become a distraction.

“I feel that without enough occasional starts to be sharper coming off the bench, my continued presence as a player would be an unfair distraction to my teammates and their success as a team is what the ultimate goal should be.”

Sure there will be a lot of speculation that Griffey will return to a championship contender, and sure there will be calls from other teams gauging his interest in playing an “off the bench” role for them, but Griffey knows that his time has come.

This isn’t the way he wanted to go out, especially not having hit better than his current .184 batting average and going without a single home run. Griffey would have rather helped his team to the top of the AL West or perhaps to the World Series.

Instead, he’ll ride off into the sunset and be known as one of the best players to never have won a World Series. Regardless of all that, he will be known for one of the best players this game has ever seen.

There’s no one that swung the bat like him and there was no one as dangerous as him with a bat in his hand. Pitchers feared him as did batters because they knew if they hit it close to him, he was either going to catch it or he was going to make you wonder if you should take that extra base against his powerful arm.

It’s too bad that the next generation of baseball fans, including my future kids, won’t be able to see what I was able to see growing up. They won’t be able to see the kind of player he was on and off the field.

He did it his way, and his way will land him in the Hall of Fame one day.

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One of the game’s all-time greats called it a career on Wednesday. Ken Griffey Jr. officially announced his retirement, according to MLB.com, after 22 years in the game. Junior exits the game ranked fifth all time with 630 home runs, sitting behind only Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, and Willie Mays.

Griffey, who’s father Ken played 19 seasons himself, was drafted with the first overall pick in the 1987 First-Year Player Draft. Since then, he’s become an instant legend. He’s a 10-time Gold Glove winner and has won seven Silver Slugger awards.

Highlights of him making eye-popping catches in the spacious center field of the old Kingdome will continue to roll for generations to come. And his majestic left-handed swing is one of the prettiest and most gracious swing in the game.

Junior, almost guaranteed as a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer, played the majority of his career with the Seattle Mariners. He came up with the M’s in 1989, and was a fixture in center, including his 1997 MVP season.

He was traded to the Reds prior to the 2000 season for Mike Cameron and Brett Tomko. But his career went in the wrong direction as he began his career in Cincinnati.

Injuries were a big part of his days with the Reds. He managed to play over 140 games in his first and last full seasons in Cincy. But the seasons in between were a dark time for The Kid. Altogether, he averaged 110 games played between 2000-2008 (he spent the last half of the ’08 season with the White Sox).

A myriad of maladies limited his ability to help the Reds, including: a strained left hamstring, a torn tendon in his right knee, a torn right hamstring, a dislocated right shoulder, a right ankle injury, a sprained right foot, arthroscopic knee surgery, and a dislocated toe (just to name a few).

But Griffey persevered throughout those tough years, and still managed to hit 30 home runs in three separate seasons as a member of the Reds.

He returned home to Seattle before the 2009 season, when he hit 19 home runs for the Mariners. But 2010 has been a struggle for the career .284 hitter. He failed to hit a single long ball, and drove in just seven runners while batting a career-low .184 (not to mention a trip to dreamland in the clubhouse during a Mariners’ game).

But in an era that has been tainted by steroids and human growth hormones, Griffey remains one of the few players whose name has never been linked to any kind of performance enhancers. His name and face are as recognizable to the world as Michael Jordan and Mickey Mouse.

His career stats now look something like this: 630 home runs, 1836 RBI, a .284 batting average, 184 stolen bases, 2,781 hits, and a .370 on-base percentage. Barring some strange aberration, we should be seeing Griffey’s acceptance speech into Cooperstown in five years from now. Griffey leaves behind a lifetime of accolades, highlights and memories that will live on for many more years to come.

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Ken Griffey Jr will always be known to myself and many others as “The Kid.” As of June 2, 2010, The Kid is retired until Cooperstown calls his number.

He gave a statement that read

“While I feel I am still able to make a contribution on the field and nobody in the Mariners front office has asked me to retire, I told the Mariners when I met with them prior to the 2009 season and was invited back that I will never allow myself to become a distraction.”

Griffey leaves the game with 630 long balls, good enough for fifth all time. He hit a solid .284 lifetime with over 1800 RBI’s.

Griffey won an MVP award and multiple Golden Glove Awards during his career. He played 22 seasons with the Mariners, Reds, and White Sox but never won a ring.

Griffey will undoubtedly be a first ballot Hall of Famer in 2015.

See ya there, Kid.

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