Kuzul

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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Sometimes, I think that my punishment in life for all the bad things I’ve done, and will do in the future, is being a devoted Seattle Mariners fan.

It’s not an easy life, and one that takes a certain kind of person to fully commit to it.

We must be masochists. The constant pain and despair that my team has brought me over my 23 years on this earth is enough to drive a man straight into the arms of a bottle of Jack Daniels.

I know there are other fan bases out there with similar, or even harder, teams to root for. Looking at you, Cubbies, I feel your pain.

Perhaps the largest cause of headaches for us Mariners fans is the fact that it seems that the moves we make to improve seem to always blow up, ending in tears for all those involved.

And now, we go back into the darkness, and look at some of these front office mishaps.

P.S. I hate you Bill Bavasi.

Begin Slideshow

According to Larry Stone of the Seattle Times , the Mariners have designated former Yankees reliever Kanekoa Texeira for assignment. They now have 10 days to trade Texeira or let somebody claim him off of waivers. 

Here is what Stone had to say of the Texeira move:

“Texeira is a bit more surprising. My feeling is that as long as you’ve gone this far with him, you might as well go all the way. Then, next year, once his Rule 5 obligation to stay in the majors is gone, you can let him develop at the proper pace. It’s not like this Mariners season is oozing with playoff possibilities at this point. And Texeira definitely showed the potential to be a good major-league pitcher down the road, and not a disaster right now. Certainly, the M’s could afford to carry him as the last man on the pitching staff.”

Texeira, 24, did not pitch that well in Seattle with a 5.30 ERA, 14 K’s, 10 walks, and a 1.71 WHIP in 18.2 innings. 

Hopefully the Yankees are able to get him back. But at this point there may be a team desperate enough for relief pitching that they’d be willing to take a chance on him.

If the Yankees do get him back, though, he’ll probably be sent back to Triple-A Scranton, at least initially. Thanks to his time with the Mariners, his development may be beyond what it was if he had stayed in the Yankees’ organization.

That means that he could very well be on the short list of call ups after minimal time back in the organization.

This is not a huge move, but with the way the Yankees’ bullpen has been struggling, adding any arms—especially young, live ones—to the organization is a positive move.

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He seems cuddly enough. He seems, in fact, almost sweet. All that brown soft fur.

But looks can be deceiving. First impressions are not always right.

Take the tale of Mariner fan Victor Aguilar. The 32-year-old man from a Seattle suburb had gone to a recent Mariners game. As he was walking along with his cousin and uncle they saw the Mariner Moose coming toward them.

Aguilar was excited to see the Moose. He has, in fact, a strange admiration of the Moose, which we’ll delve into in a moment. But first, back to the encounter.

Aguilar explained his story to Komo.com in Seattle.

“He was walking toward me, I was walking toward him,” he said. “I was going to go like this (showing an embracing arm) to take a picture with him when he pushed me out of the way, and hit my arm and neck, and hit my stomach.”

The Moose then walked off.

Attacked by the Mariner Moose. Everyone’s worst nightmare.

“I was like, what was going on,” Aguilar said. “There were more people there, and they were like, ‘What’s his deal? Why did he do that to you?'”

Apparently, as if the story wasn’t bad enough already, Aguilar had recently had disc replacement surgery and the discomfort he felt from the Moose’s attack caused him to seek medical assistance at Safeco Field.

Aguilar, as I mentioned, has had fond feelings toward the Moose for some time. In fact, on his refrigerator is a photo of his son and the Moose posing for a picture at a game earlier this season.

He said the Moose has helped him and his family make fond memories in the past.

The Mariners claim the Moose has no recollection of bumping into anyone at that game.

Rebecca Hale. spokesperson for the Mariners, told KOMO that because of the Moose’s large antlers he often bumps into things because his vision is limited.

Hale said the Mariners investigation is ongoing.

Aguilar says he is not looking for any money from the Mariners. He just wants his medical bill payed and the Mariners to discipline the Moose.

“Maybe he was drunk,” Aguilar said. “Or on drugs. Who knows the way he was acting.”

Just goes to show you, never trust a moose.

And I always thought that the Philly Phanatic was the mascot to be wary of…

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Of late, everyone has been talking about how terrible the Mariners are.

“Chone Figgins is a bust.”

“Jose Lopez can’t play defense.”

“Ken Griffey Jr. should retire.”

These are some of the printable examples of what fans have said on the Internet over the past couple of months.

After winning 85 games last season, they got rid of their weakest starting pitcher in Carlos Silva; acquired an outfielder they hoped would provide them with offense in Milton Bradley; and acquired one of the best lead-off men in the game, and one of the top free agents, in Chone Figgins.

Yet, things are worse than they were before.

47 games into the season Seattle is 19-28, six-and-a-half games behind the AL West-leading Texas Rangers.

No one has anything good to say about the Mariners—at all.

There was so much hype about the Mariners’ offseason moves: from stealing Chone Figgins from a division rival, to acquiring former Cy Young award winner Cliff Lee, to signing several players they believed would jump-start their awful offense.

These were all great ideas, which is why several people jumped on the, “Mariners winning the AL West,” bandwagon.

Last season, the Mariners were dead last in the American League in runs scored, on-base percentage (OBP), and on-base slugging percentage (OPS).

They were second-to-last in hits, batting average, slugging percentage, and total bases.

Take out those categories, and which meaningful categories do you have left?

Stolen bases? Okay, Seattle was middle-of-the-pack (eighth out of 14 teams) in stolen bases.

Strikeouts? Seattle was eighth out 14 in that category, too. Home runs? 11th.

With 640 runs scored, and 692 runs allowed, the Pythagorean winning percentage theory estimated that the Mariners won only 75 games, 10 games less than they actually won.

I think it’s safe to say that the Mariners’ offense didn’t carry them to a 24-game improvement.

What really won the Mariners all those games was their phenomenal pitching staff.

Rick Adair, and John Wetteland have done a very good job coaching the Mariners staff, and they have one of the best pitchers in baseball with Felix Hernandez on their side.

However, it took more than just King Felix to lower the team’s ERA to 3.87; they were first in the league in that category.

Jarrod Washburn, for example (a career 4.13 ERA pitcher before 2009) was 8-6 in 20 starts, and had a career-low ERA and WHIP.

It doesn’t end there as Ryan Rowland-Smith, finished with a 3.74 ERA and a 1.183 WHIP.

Erik Bedard was even better, posting a 2.82 ERA, a 1.193 WHIP with 9.8 strikeouts per nine innings.

I also failed to mention, King Felix’s 19-5 record, 2.49 ERA, 217 strikeouts, and 1.135 WHIP (all career bests), which earned him enough votes for second place in the AL Cy Young voting.

If you thought their starting rotation was good, take a few seconds to reflect on their bullpen.

David Aardsma was the new closer, and really impressed with 38 saves in 42 opportunities. He really improved his game, and cut his ERA down by over three runs.

Mark Lowe was his set-up man, and did very well during the last four months of the season. Sure, he blew a few leads and had a rough beginning and end of the season, but he was almost unhittable during the entire summer with a .176 opponent batting average, and a 2.06 ERA.

Sean White had a very good season as well, and Shawn Kelley was good backup middle reliever during his rookie season.

Now that everyone remembers the key reasons why the Mariners were so good last year, one might wonder, “Why aren’t they doing just as good? Even though they still have an atrocious offense, they still have the pitching.”

The answer is simple.

How easy is it for Seattle’s pitching staff to repeat their incredible season? Not very, to say the least.

The Mariners are still doing well when it comes to pitching, but not AS well. 

They’re second in ERA so far this season (3.72), but they still need a catalyst outside of pitching to propel the Mariners forward.

On top of that, the Mariners have resembled an infirmary from the get-go.

Eric Bedard is on the 60-day DL, Cliff Lee injured himself in a Spring Training game, Josh Bard (Seattle’s most productive catcher) was recently placed on the DL for the second time this season, Adam Moore (another catcher) has a bruised left heel and a jammed left knee, and infielder Jack Wilson is dealing with a hamstring injury.

The advice I have for Mariners fans, or for anyone who follows the Mariners, is to stay positive. This is a long season and the Mariners are 19-28, six-and-a-half games behind the Texas Rangers in a division where anything can happen, in a league where anything can happen, and in a sport where anything can happen.

The reason I say this is because anyone could’ve said the same thing about the Mariners last year (without the hype in the beginning of the season,) when they were 21-26, and seven games out of first in their first 47 games.

All one can hope for is a more productive offense (like last year), quick healing for those on the DL, good pitching to continue, and more wins.

All I know is, that I don’t think the second-best hitter on any team should be a 36-year-old designated hitter.

No disrespect to Mike Sweeney, because he’s doing pretty well for himself, but the Mariners need to rely on someone else for their offense; someone younger, and more versatile.

Good pitching (all around) is the key to a successful season, and the Mariners proved that last year.

However, to become a successful team, everyone has to pitch in. It doesn’t look like the offense or defense has done much to help Seattle yet, aside from Ichiro.

Incredible pitching is what got Seattle above .500 last year, and there’s still plenty of time for these guys to get out of their slumps.

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By Eric Denton – LA Angels Insider.com

I must confess—I bought into the hype this offseason.

The Seattle Mariners, coming off an 85-win 2009 season, made some serious moves in the winter.

They traded for one of the best starting pitchers in baseball in Cliff Lee, giving them one of the more formidable one-two punches along with blooming superstar Felix Hernandez.

Seattle also signed the best free-agent third baseman on the market, the Angels’ Chone Figgins. Not only would Ichiro and Figgins be dangerous batting one-two in the Mariner order, they also hurt the AL West champion Angels by taking their offensive catalyst.

Seattle’s one confusing move was the acquisition of controversial outfielder Milton Bradley, but even Bradley has a track record of behaving well every other year, so maybe the M’s would get the good Milton.

Adding Bradley and Figgins to a lineup consisting of one of the best players in all of MLB, Ichiro Suzuki, up-and-coming center fielder Franklin Gutierrez, along with second baseman Jose Lopez, who at 25 years old had just put up his biggest offensive season with 25 HR and 96 RBI: what wasn’t to like?

Seattle had great defense and enough offense to back up the league’s best pitching staff from 2009. The only real loss the Mariners took was losing slugging first baseman Russell Branyan to the Indians and replacing him with another former Angel, Casey Kotchman.

I was totally convinced it would be the Mariners and not the Angels who would win the AL West. I proclaimed it boldly on a couple appearances on AM830’s “The Drive” with Jeff Biggs and Jason Brennan.

While I can’t say my early concerns about the Angels have come to pass, my choice of the Mariners, like the team, is a complete disaster.

Chone Figgins has been a complete bust in the early months of his new four-year contract. Figgy is hitting just .194 with a .308 OBP and only has nine stolen bases along with three caught stealing.

Jose Lopez became such a liability defensively at second base they had to move him to third to hide him. Seattle signed Figgins, who arguably could have won a Gold Glove at third, and had to move him to second, a position he never played with regularity in Anaheim, because of Lopez’s poor defense. Lopez also has been terrible at the plate, hitting only .214 with one HR.

As for the other new additions, Milton Bradley had a well-publicized meltdown and left the team to deal with stress-related issues. He’s hitting .237 with three HR. Casey Kotchman got off to a fast start and then fell off the face of the Earth. He’s under .200 like Figgins—.190, three HR, and 18 RBI, which I believe were all produced within the first couple weeks of 2010.

Seattle icon Ken Griffey Jr. is a shell of his former self and went through his own controversy when it was reported he allegedly fell asleep in the clubhouse. Cliff Lee started the year on the disabled list, and Felix Hernandez hasn’t found his 2009 form.

Overall, the Mariners still have a very good pitching staff (team ERA 3.75) but, outside of Ichiro, Gutierrez, and the resurgent 36-year-old DH Mike Sweeney, the Mariners are a disgrace: 18-28, 7.5 games back before their weekend series against the Angels.

Unlike the Angels, who have shown some flashes of being a competitor, the Mariners, preseason darlings of most followers of Major League Baseball, were dead on arrival.

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