Mr. Griffey Goes to Cooperstown

Monday, January 11, 2016

Zach Maurer of GoLocalPDX Partner Site Oregon Sports News

Ken Griffey Jr

When I was seven years old, I was on vacation with my family in San Diego. Being that this was 26 years ago, I am quite fuzzy on the most of the details of the trip, but one memory exists as clear as if it was yesterday. My dad took me to a large card show. See kids, a long time ago instead of riding “hover boards” or sending Snapchats, we collected little cardboard rectangle pictures of our favorite athletes.

They were called cards and they were worth money too! I even got a monthly magazine called a Beckett that told me how much each card was worth. And card shows were large bazaar-style farmer markets where instead of produce, the products were collectables. Anyway, we are at this childhood dream event and my dad strolls over to me smiling and hands me present. He purchased me the 1989 Upper Deck (a fancy brand of card) Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card. I held it in my hands beaming from ear to ear.

Griffey had just burst onto the scene and had immediately become everyone’s favorite baseball player, even those who didn’t root for the Seattle Mariners. He was pure joyful energy. Laughing and smiling, he lit up the baseball world with his unparalleled athleticism in center field and his perfect swing at the plate.

The coolest thing about that memory is that not even 10 minutes later, I tore into a fresh pack of cards and there it was again! I had come away with two of the card that would go on to be the most popular one of a generation. What a trip it was.

On Wednesday, January 6, Ken Griffey Jr. was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with a staggering 99.3% of the vote; the highest of any player in the game’s storied history. It’s a perfect end to a career that soared to lofty highs and would have flown even higher if not for a rash of injuries in his prime. Seattle has had its share of superstars including Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton of those 90s Supersonics teams, and of course Ichiro Suzuki and Felix Hernandez took up the Mariners banner in the post Griffey era. Russell Wilson is the city’s current holder of the title for most popular athlete and personalities, doing something none of the others were able to do, which is bring home a championship trophy. All of them were and are still great, but none could hold a candle to the popularity the man known as “The Kid” enjoyed during his tenure in the Pacific Northwest. How popular was he? Well every spring, myself included, little league teammates would have nasty sparring battles over who would get to wear Griffey’s trademark number 24 emblazoned on their back. Later we would get yelled at by our coaches for having our hats flipped around during batting practice in the classic way Jr. would during those majestic homerun derbies. I even had two Ken Griffey Jr. chocolate bars that I stuck in the freezer for years with hopes of preserving them. I don’t actually know what happened to those pieces of confection marketing genius, though I have an inkling that my mom tired of looking at them and probably enjoyed them as a late night snack.

Over his career, The Kid put up a slash line of .284/.370/.538 with a .907 OPS while crushing 630 home runs. Now those are staggering numbers but one feat that stands out in my mind above the others was his record tying eight games in a row of mashing a big fly in 1993. Only Dale Long in 1956 and Don Mattingly in 1987 had achieved before him and no one has repeated it since.

Ken Griffey Jr.’s prime came in a time that is now known as the steroid era and many sluggers such as Mark Mcgwire, Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds, and Sammy Sosa are thought if not known to be prolific users of performance enhancing drugs. It is widely believed that Jr. played the game “the right way”, not participating in the doping behind closed clubhouse doors. That belief was held firm on Wednesday with the doors to the hall of fame opening to him, while the others with the PED “stink” on them continue to languish on a ballot that will like never see them voted in.

There are many young and exciting stars in baseball today with Mike Trout, Bryce Harper and Giancarlo Stanton setting the world on fire, but it’s different than the magic that Griffey orchestrated during the 90’s. Maybe it’s just me being snarky and waxing nostalgic, but no one was bigger and no one had more fun doing it than Ken Griffey Jr. Thanks for the memories and I can wait to see your HOF bust with a backwards Seattle Mariners hat on it.

GoLocalPDX partner Oregon Sports News: Since 2011, Oregon Sports News has provided entertaining, hard-hitting local sports news & commentary every weekday. To read more from this author, check out Oregon Sports News by clicking here.

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