Ken Griffey Jr.’s greatness was evident even when The Kid was a kid. From his days at Moeller High School in Ohio, it was clear Junior was a special talent.
The Seattle Mariners superstar quickly became a Major League Baseball icon and enjoyed a spectacular 22-year career.
Now, he heads to the Hall of Fame with a record 99.3 percent of the vote.
Here’s a look back at the journey to Cooperstown.
Baseball scouting is not an exact science. Opinions, even those about elite players, vary. Different eyes see different things.
That was never the case with Ken Griffey Jr. — not as a kid who grew up around major league ballparks, nor as a teenager seen as the best five-tool prospect in decades and an overall No. 1 pick in the Major League Baseball draft.
“His skill set was easy to identify,” said Tom Mooney, who was a Mariners’ scout living in Columbus, Ohio, in the 1980s. “He really was, at age 16 or 17, a man playing against boys.”
Early on, he was a boy who could play with some of the best.
Growing up the son of Ken Griffey Sr., one of the members of Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine — the Reds won six National League West Division titles, four NL pennants and two World Series titles in the 1970s — afforded Griffey Jr. an early look at big-league competition.
Every year, hours before one of their weekend tilts, the Reds would host a father-son game at Riverfront Stadium. As many as 30,000 fans would often attend to watch the children of Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez and Pete Rose play.
Griffey was the self-proclaimed star of those games starting at age 7.
“Everyone talks about the ‘Big Red Machine’ being the greatest team on earth,” Griffey said. “And I keep telling everybody they are the second best because they couldn’t beat us 9-year-olds.”
By the time Griffey got to high school, his father had been traded to the New York Yankees. Griffey attended Archbishop Moeller, a private, all-male Catholic school in the suburbs of Cincinnati. Historically, it was known more for its five national titles in football than it was for baseball.
Its coach was Mike Cameron, who started at the school in 1967. That year, he had two players taken in the MLB first-year player draft. One of them was Buddy Bell, who had an 18-year major league career and a son, David, who teamed with Griffey in Seattle.
“At the time, I couldn’t tell you if (Bell) had the skills to play 10-15 years in the big leagues,” Cameron said. “By the time Kenny came, I had refined my skills observing and seeing talent.”
Forgoing baseball his first two years of high school, Griffey tried out for the Crusaders in the spring of 1986. Cameron — who has since retired and is now the official scorekeeper for the Reds — remembers that first day well.
“We had stations in our hitting facility,” Cameron said. “I was excited to see Kenny hit off the tee, and see what he could do.”
On Griffey’s first swing, with plenty of teammates watching, he flat-out missed the baseball.
“I knew he felt uneasy,” Cameron said. “He said he had not hit much off a tee, and told me, ‘Griffeys don’t hit off tees.’ And I said, ‘At Moeller, that is what we do.’”
Cameron sensed it was a good time to transition Griffey to the live batting cages. While there, he saw that sweet, left-handed swing hammer baseball after baseball.
“There was a big, ‘Wow!’” Cameron said. “The other players, they just stopped what they were doing to turn around and look at him.
“He was the real thing.”
It was later that summer when Griffey first attracted the Seattle Mariners’ interest.
Veteran talent evaluator Roger Jongewaard, the Mariners’ director of scouting at the time, watched Griffey play games in a Connie Mack tournament in Texas. Jongewaard, who passed away in 2012 at the age of 76, had also selected Darryl Strawberry No. 1 overall in the 1980 draft while with the New York Mets.
“We knew Junior was one of the five or six guys we were going to focus on,” said Mooney. “The problem we had back then was that the Mariners were so bad, there was a push to go with a college player because he would get to the big leagues sooner.”
That directive came from former Mariners owner George Argyros, who had grown cranky over seeing a string of high draft picks not pan out. Argyros reportedly preferred pitcher Mike Harkey, a 6-foot-5, 220-pound right-hander from Cal State Fullerton. He was the most coveted prospect in college before the 1987 draft.
“Roger stood his ground,” Mooney said. “He knew (Griffey) was the best player in the draft.”
Seattle sent various scouts to Griffey’s games, including Mooney, Bob Harrison, even longtime evaluator Steve Vrablik, who had started his scouting career in 1959.
That year, Vrablik caught two of Griffey’s games, and filed his thoughts in a Mariners’ report in early May. Some of the highlights:
Physical traits: “Tall, rangy, strong body build. Long arms and legs. Solid thighs and buttocks. Not fully matured. Should get stronger.”
Skill-set strengths: “Good bat speed. Quick stroke. Ball jumps off bat. Future outstanding power. Knows strike zone. Above average arm strength (in outfield). Very good fluid and range.”
Skill-set weaknesses: “Tendency to short-arm throws. Doesn’t set himself right. Will uppercut, but he’s a good low-ball hitter. Over swings at times.”
Vrablik’s walkoff comment in his report was the most indicative: “Top prospect for me with outstanding skills.”
Griffey had a stellar senior season, batting a school-record .478 with seven home runs and 26 RBI. Three of those home runs came in one game against Fairmont High School.
He mainly played center field. Occasionally he would pitch.
Griffey was not only named the Greater Catholic League player of the year for a second consecutive season, he was also the state’s Gatorade player of the year in 1987.
Cameron said that spring, scouts showed up to games mostly to “figure out … whether (Griffey) would sign, and for (how) much.”
As the June draft crept closer, Mooney said the organization debated over three players for that top spot — Griffey, Harkey and Mark Merchant, another speedy prep outfielder out of Oviedo High School in Florida.
“(Merchant) was like Junior — a center fielder and gifted,” Mooney said. “But the things that did not come easy for Merchant did for Junior, and that was a separator.”
In the final few weeks, it was Mooney who spent a day at the Griffey household issuing a pre-draft, cognitive 160-question test — similar to the Wonderlic test given to NFL draft prospects.
“I spent two or three hours at the home, and I was struck by how open it was,” Mooney said. “Kids from the neighborhood were coming and going from the home. They had a game room with Ping-Pong.
“It was not a stuffy house. … Everybody felt comfortable there. And as soon as I left, I got on the phone with Roger and said, ‘This is a very special opportunity we have here. I think Kenny has his head on straight.’”
When the night of June 2 came, and the Mariners were solid on one choice: Griffey, who reportedly inked a signing bonus between $160,000 and $175,000.
Somewhat reluctantly on-board with the decision, Argyros issued an ultimatum to his scouting department, directed mainly at Jongewaard and Mooney.
“After the draft, George called me and said, ‘(Mooney), you better be right on that,’” Mooney said.
Rick Sweet answered his phone. Ken Griffey Sr. was on the other line, wanting to check in on his boy in Bellingham.
This was his son’s first time away from home.
“I heard Junior did something,” Griffey Sr. said.
“Yeah, that’s all right,” Sweet said. “I spanked him.”
Griffey Sr. laughed.
“Well, if his mom needs to come out, she’ll come out,” he said.
Sweet chuckled recalling the conversations. “Most parents didn’t call me like that, obviously,” Sweet said.
Sweet, the manager of the Bellingham Mariners, and Griffey Sr. knew each other from their years in the big leagues. And now Sweet was coaching Griffey’s 17-year-old son, the No. 1 selection in the 1987 draft.
Griffey Jr.’s time in the minor leagues was limited to rookie league Bellingham, Single-A San Bernardino and Double-A Vermont — a total of 129 games over two seasons.
“I can tell you, I’ve been in the game for over three decades — I’ve never experienced a greater minor league baseball player than Ken Griffey Jr.,” said former San Bernardino general manager Bill Shanahan.
“The cool thing about minor league baseball is these players become your own. You follow them from the beginning. Single-A, Double-A, collegiate teams — you look at some of these kids and say, ‘That kid is going to make it.’
“But Ken Griffey Jr. was more than that. For him, it was ‘That kid is going to be in the Hall of Fame.’”
There are no iconic videos from Griffey’s time in the minors. Rest assured he made plays that were of the highlight variety.
Griffey’s first professional hit was a home run at Everett Memorial Stadium. A bronze plaque is embedded in the sidewalk outside that left field fence where it landed on the corner of 38th and Lombard.
“I remember he hit it and I’m going ‘God, that’s out of here,’” Sweet said. “I’ve had that stuck in my head.”
Griffey ran into a center field wall in Everett, causing him to miss a week with a concussion and an injured right shoulder.
“His whole career he did that, and that’s part of what I loved about Junior,” Sweet said. “He was the best player in the Northwest League. Back then, they didn’t have the press all over him or anything like that, so it was quiet. But he was special from Day One.
“I have coached some really good players. But Griff — he was in a class by himself. God, he had so much fun playing the game.”
That 1987 Bellingham team was Sweet’s first as a manager, and looking back he said he was probably harsh on his players, especially The Kid.
“I made him cry a time or two,” Sweet said. “I had to take him out of games. There were a couple of times, and I know he has alluded to that, where I had to bench him. But I just remember how determined he was the next day to come out and make up for it and play even harder.”
Sweet recalled Griffey Jr. living in a house in Bellingham with a few other players, and the manager had to get on him about how he kept his room.
“We stopped by and checked in on them once in a while, like we did all the players. I had to say, ‘Hey, you guys got to clean this up. C’mon,’” Sweet said. “It’s their first time away from home, they have to do all of the dishes and take care of their own place.”
Griffey Sr. met with the team on an off day and took Griffey Jr. and some players out to eat afterward, Sweet recalled.
“The next day I come to the ballpark and all these guys have new bats and new gloves — Junior had taken all the equipment his dad gave him and he gave it to all his teammates,” Sweet said.
“It just put a smile on my face. Here’s this kid and his dad comes to town, and his dad is a big league player and All-Star and a tremendous player, himself. And he brings all this equipment for Junior, and he then gives it to all the guys on the club. That’s the kind of kid Junior was.”
For the 1988 season, Griffey was sent to San Bernardino, the Mariners’ advanced Single-A team. Manager Ralph Dickenson wanted to work with Griffey’s swing, which he noticed was getting long.
But Griffey pre-empted the manager’s meeting with one of his own.
“I walk in from the mound to home plate and he says, ‘I just want to tell you one thing before we get started — don’t mess with the Griffey Swing,’” Dickenson recalled, laughing.
Dickenson, who remembered that he once benched Griffey for jogging to first base, said he knew he had a special talent. He recalled Griffey’s throws from center field that hovered eight feet off the ground from release all the way to the plate.
Griffey batted .338 with 11 home runs, 42 RBIs and a 1.007 OPS in 58 games in San Bernardino, and wowed defensively.
He was a sensation. No other player on the team was younger than 20, and Griffey was 18.
“I’ve only known two players in the time I’ve been coaching baseball who could struggle for a little bit and then could say, ‘I’ve had enough of this, I’m going to be myself again.’ That was (Rafael) Palmeiro and Griffey,” Dickenson said.
“I’ve been around Rafael Palmeiro, Barry Bonds — but Griffey is by far, I mean, by far, the best of all those guys. I feel like he could have been — if he didn’t get hurt later on — the best player to ever play the game.”
Shanahan, the San Bernardino GM, decided to put on a Ken Griffey Jr. poster night, handing them out to the first 1,000 fans. And this was while Griffey still played for the team.
Shanahan even came up with a chant for when Griffey would come to bat. The stadium announcer would ask what time is it, “and everybody in the crowd would yell, ‘It’s Griffey time!’” he said.
Shanahan posted a photo of the poster to his Facebook account when it was announced Griffey would enter the Hall of Fame with a record 99.3 percent of the vote.
“A lot of times these stars come along in the minors and they never really pan out,” Shanahan said. “I look at the players I’ve seen come and go and you just can’t tag someone like you could Ken Griffey Jr. He was a superstar of superstars at 18 years old.
“I get goose bumps when I think of that, and that was 30 years ago. All I can tell you is that he was the greatest player I’ve ever seen.”
Griffey was called up to Double-A Vermont later that season, but was limited to 17 games by a back injury.
It was April Fools’ Day in 1989 and Jim Lefebvre thought he’d play a prank on Griffey.
The first-year Mariners manager called Griffey into his office and listed his concerns on how Griffey might not be able to handle the rigors of the big leagues.
“And he’s kind of looking at me like I have something negative coming out,” Lefebvre said.
“So I put my hand across the desk and I say, ‘You’re my starting center fielder, and you’re going to be here for a long, long time.’ He looked at me and you would not believe the expression on his face. He says, ‘Can I call my dad?’
“I said, ‘Absolutely.’ I thought he was going to cry. I said, ‘You go ahead and call your dad. Congratulations. You’re now the starting center fielder for the Seattle Mariners.’”
Griffey was in a fall Instructional League when Lefebvre said he saw Griffey for the first time.
His reaction?
“Son of a gun, look at this kid hit,” Lefebvre recalled. “He reminded me a lot of Hank Aaron. Hank Aaron had that beautiful, fluid swing. You could see it right away.”
The issue was whether to bring Griffey to the bigs or let him spend some time in Triple-A. Griffey hit .360 during the ensuing spring training and had a 15-game hitting streak.
The decision had been left to Lefebvre, and he waited as long as he could.
“That’s a lot of pressure to put on me as a manager,” Lefebvre said. “Junior had never failed, and I would hate to have to be the guy that brought him to the big leagues and have to send him back because he wasn’t ready.”
But Lefebvre thought of his advice-seeking conversation with Sparky Anderson before taking the job with the Mariners, Lefebvre’s first managerial job — “Good players come fast.”
The Mariners were to face Rick Sutcliffe in his final spring training start for the Chicago Cubs, with Sutcliffe looking to get into regular-season mode. The matchup decided it for Lefebvre.
Griffey battled Sutcliffe for what Lefebvre said was probably 14 pitches before drawing a walk.
“Rick was throwing him curveballs, sliders, cutters, sinkers — everything,” Lefebvre said. “Junior just kept fouling it off. Then he throws a bunch of balls and there was one that was three or four inches outside and Junior took it for a walk.
“That’s when I said, ‘He’s ready.’”
Griffey hit the first pitch he saw in his MLB debut for a double at Oakland. In his first plate appearance in the Kingdome, he hit a home run. And he was 19.
Lefebvre recalled Griffey heading to an autograph session in Tacoma before a game, expecting 500-600 people. Instead, 3,000 showed, and Griffey was late getting back for batting practice.
“He was one of those guys who right away people gravitated toward,” Lefebvre said.
“He was always out there just having a ball. At batting practice, he would go out with the bat boys and have more fun hanging out with them than his own teammates. He just loved being out there, and he’d have a big smile on his face, and I admired that. I do know one thing — Junior was an absolute treasure.”
Ken Griffey Jr. was among the top two or three baseball players of the 1990s. Thanks to advanced statistics, his place in such a ranking is fodder for one of those bar-stool debates that ultimately conclude with the words “Last Call!”
But throughout a decade remembered for the labor problems that splintered the sport and alienated the public, there is no doubt about the identity of baseball’s most recognized player. He was known as “The Kid.”
Ken Griffey Jr. was pictured on a candy bar, and the subject of a video game, and brand name for an athletic shoe manufactured by the company that launched an ad campaign touting him as a 1996 presidential candidate. His voice was heard in a season-three episode of “The Simpsons,” around the time his leaping catch doomed the Minnesota Twins’ storybook season in the enchanting movie, “Little Big League.” He made a cameo appearance on “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.”
How enthralled was America with Griffey?
Randy Adamack, senior vice president of communications for the Mariners, quantifies it with a number — 12 — more revealing than a 20-year old Q score.
“I used to go back to Ohio once a summer, with my children, to visit family,” Adamack said a few weeks ago. “I grew up about 65 miles northeast of Cleveland, a small town where the local newspaper would cover events like Little League baseball. One day I saw a full page devoted to 15 players who’d qualified for some tournament. Each was asked who his favorite baseball player was, and 12 answered ‘Ken Griffey Jr.’
“I still remember that because it was the mid ’90s, back when the Cleveland Indians had really good teams, pennant winners with a bunch of All-Stars. And yet 12 kids, probably big fans of the Indians, listed a Seattle Mariner as their favorite.”
Griffey’s allure during the 1990s was steeped in a combination of substance and style. Through 11 seasons between 1989 and 1999, he hit .299 while averaging 36 home runs and 15 stolen bases. He was named to the All-Star Game in 10 of those years, and won all 10 of his Gold Glove awards.
“The whole sport has watched each of his baby steps,” the Washington Post’s Thomas Boswell wrote in the spring of 1994, when Griffey became the first player to hit more than 20 home runs before June 1. “After becoming one of the youngest everyday players in history at 19, he was faced with a new question every year. Could he hit .300? Yes, at 20. Could he drive in 100 runs? That came at 21. Can he have back-to-back big years with 20 homers, 100 RBI and a .300 average? That was proved at 22.
“By last season it was clear that Griffey had ambition, durability, and enthusiasm. While far from diligent, he seemed to know the game’s nuances by a kind of high-spirited, hat-backward osmosis.”
And though Barry Bonds – the National League’s answer to Griffey – was assembling similar numbers with the Pirates and then the Giants, Bonds’ cold and indifferent persona minimized his national marketing potential. Griffey had a brooding side as well, but when the lights went on and the stage was his, he occupied it with the flair of a natural-born entertainer.
The Home Run Derby, which has been held on the eve of the All-Star Game since 1985, was not an event Griffey annually anticipated with eagerness. He took pride in his all-around skill set — “I’m a hitter, not a slugger,” he was fond of saying — and had legitimate concerns the smooth swing that was his trademark could be corrupted by a prolonged competition requiring ferocious hacks at batting-practice pitches.
Displeased that ESPN had scheduled the Mariners for a Sunday night game at Texas, Griffey wanted no part of the 1998 frivolity at Denver’s Coors Field. He was tired and cranky – the Mariners were 37-51 at the break – and he’d already established himself as a Derby legend with a first-place finish in 1994, two years after he launched a ball that caromed off the B&O Warehouse beyond the right field of Baltimore’s Camden Yards.
Griffey was determined to participate in the All-Star Eve festivities only as an observer when, about 90 minutes before the first casual lob of a long night, something odd happened. Presented with a trophy for accumulating the most votes in fan balloting, 50,000 spectators booed him.
It was his motivation to pick up a bat and put on a show.
“I don’t like to get booed,” Griffey said a few hours later. “I don’t think anybody does.”
Griffey won the 1998 Home Run Derby with 19 long flies. He would win again in 1999, and return to display his power for the final time in 2000, when he took second. Griffey’s Home Run Derby totals: Three first-place finishes and three second-place finishes in eight appearances.
Because he belonged to a West Coast team that begins some 100 games a season shortly after 10 p.m. on the East Coast, Griffey’s national exposure was limited. He was seen in 16 playoff games during the 1990s, but never in a World Series.
The Home Run Derby can be annoying to some baseball purists – Chris Berman’s “back-back-back!” call has the dulcet sound of a jackhammer at dawn – but it helped introduce an entire generation of young Americans to a superstar with the backwards cap and radiant smile.
“Kids love watching it,” said Adamack, “and Junior was at his best with kids. If we had a request that involved him talking to kids, I could be 100 percent certain he was on board. If the request was for him to speak to some businessmen wearing ties, uh, well, the chances weren’t so good.
“His commitment to the Make-A-Wish foundation was amazing. He didn’t just show up and pose for a photo. He’d bring cancer patients into the clubhouse and interact with them on the field during warmups. He did whatever he could to bring some joy into their lives.”
Griffey’s ability to connect with the public — and kids, in particular — was like his swing: unforced and seemingly effortless.
“He has a real screen presence,” Andy Scheinman, the director of “Little Big League,” told Sports Illustrated for a 1994 cover story that depicted Griffey as baseball’s most marketable icon since Reggie Jackson became known as “the straw that stirs the drink” of the 1970s Yankees.
“When he is on the screen,” Scheinman said of Griffey, “your eyes just naturally go to him. He’s like Tom Cruise in that sense. We had a number of big name baseball players in the movie (Randy Johnson, Ivan Rodriguez, Sandy Alomar Jr., Rafael Palmeiro, Tim Raines), but when Griffey was on the field, it was like a different world. He’s just a huge, huge star.”
The ultimate validation of Griffey’s popularity during the 1990s was his election, in 1998, to Major League Baseball’s “All-Century Team.” Fans determined the roster of 50, and Griffey received more support (645,389 votes) than fellow outfielders Roberto Clemente (582,937), Stan Musial (571,279), Frank Robinson (220,226) and Barry Bonds (173,279).
In retrospect, the voting had more to do with an assumption the second half of Griffey’s career would mirror the first. It didn’t. After turning 30, he would receive MVP votes only once as the injuries mounted and his quest to play in a World Series deteriorated into a pipe dream.
By 2002, baseball historian Bill James, noting Griffey shared both a birthplace and a birthday with Musial, assessed The Kid’s accomplishments versus those of The Man.
“The second-best left-handed hitter ever born in Donora, Pa. on Nov. 21,” James wrote of Griffey.
Perhaps, but when it comes to baseball players whose marketing appeal endured for the decade between 1989 and 2000, Ken Griffey Jr. was second-best to nobody.
Ken Griffey Jr. exhibited an extraordinary grace in everything he did.
Except his exits. Those needed work.
With a generation having passed, Griffey fielded a question this spring about his first break-up with the Mariners, after the 1999 season when he demanded a trade out of Seattle.
After a preface that minimized all the subplots and drama, and the disenchantment he felt at the time, Griffey concluded that “it was just one of those things that happened.”
It seemed a verbal shrug, as if it had been one of life’s existential absurdities, an uncontrollable act. Maybe a millennial glitch. It was February Y2K, after all, when he took his leave.
But it wasn’t happenstance, of course. There was the dead-air of Safeco Field. The emerging Alex Rodriguez sharing the marquee. His kids growing up at a distant home.
He forced management’s hand into a bad trade and beat feet after 11 seasons. Assessing his going and coming was a matter of perspective at the time.
In Seattle, the jilted cried: We lost Griffey! Can you believe it?
In Cincinnati the joyous cried: We’re getting Griffey! Can you believe it?
“There was no hard feelings,” Griffey said of his departure, denying the obvious, or at least recognizing the futility of revisiting the moment.
This was in April, when he was in town to throw out the first pitch at the Mariners’ home-opener. A new generation of fans cheered wildly at the mention of his election to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Clearly eroded over time were the sense of abandonment from the fans and whatever alienation Griffey felt for the franchise.
“Things (after the ’99 season) were out of people’s control and sometimes either you have to look back and go, “OK, it was a decision that was based on … what was best for my family, not what everybody thought the decision should be.’ It was one of those things that happened.”
The Mariners brass and the legion of fans were among those who thought it was the wrong decision.
Griffey reportedly gave M’s general manager Pat Gillick a list of four teams he saw as prime trade candidates. Gillick noted: “It was not an ideal situation in which to negotiate.” Without leverage, the Mariners got little in return for the game’s best player.
Looking back at the moment, now, Reds general manager Jim Bowden had a view from the other side: “My favorite moment was the day we traded for Ken Griffey Jr. and I was blessed to have the opportunity to walk to the podium to declare ‘baseball is back in Cincinnati .’ To be able to bring a future Hall of Famer, MVP, Gold Glove, Silver Slugger superstar to the children of the greater Cincinnati area was an epic moment for me.”
Griffey accepted a contract from the Reds of some $30 million less than the Mariners had offered in an attempt to extend his stay. In essence, Griffey was willing to “pay” the Mariners a fortune to let him go.
He told the Cincinnati fans: “It doesn’t matter how much money you make, it’s where you feel happy.”
The inference was easy: He wasn’t happy in Seattle, and it was worth it to him to sacrifice money to get out.
It worked in Cincinnati for a while, and then only sporadically thereafter because of injuries. He hit 40 home runs the first season and made another All-Star appearance, but in the following six seasons his injuries limited him to no more than 128 games in a season.
Griffey’s connection to his old teammates remained strong, he said, as he still called his Mariners friends, Jay Buhner and Edgar Martinez especially.
He made two more All-Star appearances after the first year, and rallied with an impressive 35 home runs in 2005 at age 35 to win the National League’s comeback player of the year award.
And he left a mark with the Reds organization even when he wasn’t producing on the field.
“It was an honor to play alongside one of the greatest players in the history of the game,” shortstop Barry Larkin said. “He played the game the right way offensively, he impacted the game defensively. … Junior had great range, tremendous athleticism and a cannon of an arm. And he played with a smile on his face.”
Ah, the Griffey smile. It was revived in Cincinnati , and teammates there developed the same powerful attachment to Griffey his Mariners teammates had.
“His talent made him a first-ballot Hall of Famer,” infielder Aaron Boone said. “But what I appreciate most about Ken is how much he wanted to just be one of the guys. I’m proud to call him a friend.”
Griffey already had been a 10-time All-Star with 398 home runs when he left Seattle. He had Hall of Fame credentials already. But Reds teammates said that his persona had nothing to do with star power.
“Junior was one of my favorite teammates,” said pitcher Danny Graves. “He had a great clubhouse presence, and made the game look so easy … and, of course, he had the sweetest swing ever.”
First-baseman Sean Casey, now with MLB Network, also marveled at how the superstar could be just one of the guys in the clubhouse.
“There are only certain times in your career where you can say you had the privilege of playing with a Hall of Famer,” Casey said. “As I played next to Junior for six seasons, I knew we all were watching one of the greatest ever to play the game. I’m proud to say that while he was a great player, he is an even better friend.”
Teammates in Cincinnati saw some qualities in an aging Griffey that the Mariners never had to witness, particularly the way he dealt with the injuries that diminished his game.
The things that seemed so easy and natural in Seattle started to involve more grit and determination.
“He was tough,” pitcher David Weathers said. “I saw him take bloody bandages off his leg from where he had torn a muscle three years earlier, and all of his teammates were amazed he played and never said a word.”
But Weathers remembers with equal amazement the way Griffey would get down on the floor of the clubhouse and wrestle with his son.
The Mariners thrived in the short term after his departure, advancing to the ALCS in 2000 and winning an American League-record 116 games in 2001.
When the Reds came to Seattle in 2007 for an interleague series, Griffey was stunned by the response of the fans in Safeco. So many had been so critical of his departure in 1999, a time when Griffey said he’d received death threats.
No more. Through the filter of time, fans realized the ways in which Griffey had helped save baseball in Seattle, and get the new stadium built.
“Never did I imagine that it would be like this coming back,” Griffey said then. “I didn’t realize how much I missed being in Seattle.”
He came back briefly in 2009-10, and hit a very respectable 19 home runs at age 39 in ’09.
“Getting back for the second stint was to give back,” he said. “(At) 38-39, you know you’re not going to play every day.”
And amid more controversy, stemming from published reports he had fallen asleep in the clubhouse during a game, Griffey made another abrupt exit. Poof.
But his welcome at his first-pitch ceremony this spring proved how well the relationship between Griffey and the Mariners had healed.
After he was voted into the Hall of Fame by a record percentage, Griffey announced that he would wear a Mariners hat for his Hall induction.
He made it sound as if it had been a foregone conclusion.
“I think with the situation that has gone on now, it was a very easy decision for me to put on a Mariners hat for me to go into the Hall of Fame,” he said. “That wasn’t even a question.”
He’s wrong about that. It was a big deal, not just something else that happened.
It was hugely symbolic, and a gracious thank you to the fans in Seattle and the franchise that gave him his start.
Ken Griffey Jr. quit baseball with a long drive ... to Florida.
As morning was breaking on June 2, 2010, some 14 hours before he was expected to be in uniform for a Mariners game against the Twins in Seattle, Griffey turned the ignition key of his Infiniti QX56 and headed for home.
The excuse-me-while-I-disappear departure struck many fans as impulsive. It wasn’t. Griffey’s role at age 40 had been reduced to that of a left-handed DH and occasional pinch hitter. His batting average of .184 was statistically symbolic — 100 points below the .284 that will appear on his Hall-of-Fame plaque — and he had yet to hit a home run.
A sad moment revealed the extent of Griffey’s decline three weeks previously, when manager Don Wakamatsu called on him to bat for Adam Moore against the Orioles at Baltimore. Trailing 5-1 in the top of the ninth, the Mariners had men on first and third. Griffey lofted a fly ball to right field for a sacrifice fly RBI.
When Griffey got back to the dugout, he was embraced by veteran Mike Sweeney, his self-appointed bodyguard and mental-skills coach. Sweeney appeared to shout: “That’s what I’m talking about!”
The most electrifying player of his generation was being congratulated for having managed to drive home an inconsequential run in a 5-2 defeat.
Griffey had made a mistake common to virtually every baseball legend but Ted Williams: Not knowing when to say when.
A chance for a much more compelling exit had presented itself after the Mariners’ 2009 season finale, when Griffey took a joy ride around Safeco Field on the shoulders of teammates who regarded him as an idol. They suspected that his last-at bat of the game, an eighth-inning single, would be the last at-bat of his career.
Although Griffey’s offensive numbers during his ballyhooed return season with the Mariners in 2009 were far from spectacular — he hit .214, with 19 homers and 57 RBIs in 117 games — they were good enough to convince him and the front office that a final verse of the swan song was in order.
Besides, he’d had a blast. Serving as the team’s good-humor man and original prankster, Griffey’s ability to energize a dreary, polarized clubhouse was a subtle but prominent factor in the Mariners putting together their second winning record since 2003.
“He’s a superstar, and not just because of his numbers and his stats, but because of his personality,” former teammate Ichiro Suzuki said upon learning of Griffey’s Hall-of-Fame enshrinement. “He was about caring for each other. It’s something we all need to learn from him, and it’s what makes him better than a superstar.”
That Ichiro got to know Griffey involved a confluence of events beginning in 2007, when Junior came back to Safeco Field for the first time as an opponent. His request to be traded after the 1999 season — he wanted to be closer to his family in Florida — turned into a boondoggle fraught with complications.
A deal sending Griffey to Cincinnati, where he grew up, was worked out, and it worked out well. Among the players the Mariners received in exchange for their superb center fielder was Mike Cameron, another superb center fielder. Cameron was a key cog on Seattle’s 2000 wild-card team, and an All-Star for the 2001 powerhouse that won 116 games.
Still, Griffey was wary about the reception awaiting him in 2007 at Safeco Field, where Alex Rodriguez remains a pariah for signing the free-agent contract, then the most lucrative in American pro sports history, that delivered him to the Texas Rangers in 2001.
The “reception” was celebrated in the spirit of a garden party honoring a golden wedding anniversary. A 15-minute pregame tribute to Griffey concluded with a four-minute standing ovation that planted the seeds for him to wind up in Seattle.
After a 2008 season split between the Reds and Chicago White Sox, Griffey became a free agent for the first time. No suitors were more obvious than the Mariners, coming off a 61-101 record and desperate for some positive PR spin in the wake of several calamitous moves arranged by deposed general manager Bill Bavasi.
A few weeks before spring training, Bavasi’s replacement, Jack Zduriencik, and Wakamatsu, the newly appointed manager, met with Griffey, his wife Melissa, and agent Brian Goldberg in Arizona. The Mariners reportedly pitched a one-year contract to Griffey for $2 million. Along with incentives related to plate appearances and attendance, the deal topped out at $4.5 million.
But the plot was thickened when the Braves got involved, offering essentially the same salary. A National League destination wasn’t ideal for somebody who profiled as a designated hitter after knee surgery, but Atlanta presented geographic benefits beyond its relative proximity to Griffey’s Florida home in Orlando. He could drive to the team’s spring training site in 20 minutes.
Furthermore, there was a family-tree connection in Atlanta. Ken Griffey Sr. played for the Braves between 1986 and 1988, a bit of history Henry Aaron likely referenced when he made a phone call to Junior.
Griffey Jr. chatted with Willie Mays, who finished his career in New York, where his legend was launched in 1951.
“Willie hit on it a little harder,” Griffey’s agent, Goldberg, told ESPN.com in 2009. “But they both said, ‘You have to do what you want to do.’ They told him, ‘You might have to make some short-term struggles, but the bottom line is go by how you want to be remembered for the next 50 years after you’re done.’”
Newspapers in Atlanta and Seattle reported that a deal with the Braves was imminent, but Griffey, whose natural baseball talent did not extend to the business side of the industry, insisted he was flummoxed.
“We are still kicking things around and have not made a decision,” he told MLB.com. “This is the first time in my career that I’ve been a free agent, and it’s nerve-racking. I love Seattle, but you know how close I am to my wife and kids.”
It turned out that one of Griffey’s three kids, 13-year-old daughter Taryn, had a voice that resonated most forcefully with a man who’d been talking to Henry Aaron and Willie Mays.
“She told him, ‘Dad, I really think you should go back to the Mariners, and not have any regrets about how you finished,’” Goldberg recalled for ESPN.com. “That kind of put it over the top.”
The advice paved the way for a two-season experience that mirrored Griffey’s career: The first part was silky smooth and radiated the sheer joy of playing baseball. The second part was a bumper-car pileup that revealed the difficulty of playing baseball.
Bored by his consignment one night as a pinch hitter for a team going nowhere, Griffey went to the clubhouse during the middle innings and settled into his recliner chair for a nap. Taking a nap, while a game is in progress, isn’t as egregious a violation of baseball etiquette as, say, cracking open a beer and feasting on fried chicken. But Griffey’s indifference to a sport he once personified with his glad-to-be-alive-and-doing-what-I-love smile was heartbreaking evidence the end was near.
Hearts break, and hearts heal. For 11 seasons, Mariners fans had the privilege of watching a fabulous talent in his prime. And though he returned well past that prime, a final thought prevails:
There was greatness in the midst.