Looks the Kid is hanging up his hat. Better for him to go out on his own terms than getting cut by the Mariners. I don’t see how he won’t make Cooperstown on his first ballot, but stranger things have happened.
I remember when he first broke into the league… Also remember his 1989 Upper Deck rookie card going for over $100… now it can be had for a quarter that :mad:
Wow. I guess I didn’t think he’d quit in the middle of a season, but his lack of hitting (and, uh, wakefulness, maybe) makes it clear it was time. Too bad he didn’t have a nicer ending. He was really a natural.
He’ll definitely be missed. He was The Man when I first became a baseball and Mariners fan back in '92. But I think he’s doing the right thing at the right time - he just hasn’t had “it” this year, and by stepping down he’s making room for the team to bring in/up somebody who can be productive.
He was a wonderful player, with a good claim to have been the best hitter in baseball for a few years. If only he’d stayed healthy with the Reds, maybe we wouldn’t have a steroid user at the top of the home run list.
A guy who always gave it his all. Which in the long run hit his career. I wonder what his numbers would be if he didn’t run into so many walls in the outfield.
He was born in my neck of the woods - his dad graduated from my high school.
I paid a lot more attention to baseball in the 1980s than since, but he was something to see.
He retires with 630 homeruns. He should be first ballot, no question. The most significant thing about his career, in my mind, is that he did it without cheating. All of his numbers are legit. That, in my mind, puts him ahead of Bonds and McGuire and Sosa. He did it clean, and he deserves to go to Cooperstown ahead of all of them. I tip my hat to a great career. He had an effortless grace to his play that was always fun to watch. A real natural.
My favorite all time baseball player!
It’s too bad he had to go out like this (middle of a terrible season), but I agree that it’s the right time…and he is clearly the best of the modern era players and his injuries prevented him from being one of the best ever.
No, he is one of the best ever, as is. All his injuries prevented him from was moving up from–hell, I dunno, let’s say 12th to 7th. Something like that.
Hats off to THE KID. During my couple of years in Seattle, he was one of the few reasons I’d actually cheer for anything Mariners. I’d usually root for the visiting team. Anyway, he’s had one of the sweetest swings in baseball and, like others have said, it was all natural.
Just wish he could have had a “retirement” tour for the remainder of the season while the Mariners are on the road. I’ll be in the Anaheim area when the Mariners visit later this summer.
Wow. A first ballot HoF’er for sure.
This is a guy whose baseball arc is typical of a guy who didn’t use 'roids or HGH. A tremendous player whose career was cut short by injury.
Can you imagine the numbers he could have put up if he didn’t miss all of those games because of injury?
He had the best pure swing I have ever seen in person.
As far as I know or have ever heard, a class act. I wish him all the best.
Kinda have to wonder who wouldn’t vote for him as a first round HOFer. I’m sure somebody will, but I’m not sure why other than some silly notion that nobody should be a unanimous pick or something.
The argument that nobody but the "true greats’ should be first ballot picks for the HOF may have made sense more than 50 years ago when there was still a backlog of great players but that hasn’t been the case for years. If somebody’s qualified to be in the HOF, there’s no point in making him wait a year or more. Nothing’s going to change in the interim.
As for Griffey, my memories are going to games in the Kinddome during the early 90s and seeing him make some outstanding catches and defensive plays. I think because of injuries, we ended up seeing 2/3 of the ballplayer he should’ve been over his entire career. Nonetheless, the numbers he did put up are more than enough to make him a slam dunk automatic first ballot HOF selection.
Wait, why are we still assuming anyone didn’t take steriods? Haven’t we learned anything yet from the list of names caught? I’ll judge Griffey based on his performance on the field, which is that of an all time great player. I make no presumptions on what he did or didn’t do off the field.
In fact, his many injuries start to look like circumstantial evidence that he did use. I hate that I think like that…I hate to be overly cynical about baseball, but the players created a atmosphere where “Trust no one” is the only way I can think.
In spite of that, hats off to one of the greats. Before going to Cinci, Junior was one of those players where you just couldn’t miss an at bat. He should go to hall on the first ballot, but there’s always someone who doesn’t vote for the deserving player on that first ballot. See: Rickey Henderson.
No doubt.
Ah, a Moeller alum, eh? I work in the heart of the “High School Sports Is King” area of Cincinnati, good old Western Hills. Elder, St X, Moeller are all names that get bandied about by my employees all the time.
Amen. I’ve lived in the Cincinnati area since 1992, and I remember when the Reds signed him. It was unreal. Us Reds fans were so happy to get him. We felt so lucky. It really is too bad that he had as many injuries as he did, they really marred his career in Cincinnati.
He did have some curious bugaboos to his personality. Someone in the local sports media questioned his pre-game workout routine (as in, he didn’t have one, didn’t stretch, etc) and Junior responded with “Does a cheetah stretch before attacking its prey?”. Junior was pretty sensitive about his image.
I also think towards the end of his stint here that there was a lot of resentment in the dugout because Junior and Dunn had their own set of rules, and then there were the rules for all the rest of the players. Junior was seen leaving games early when the Reds were losing big, etc.
I just always wished his career with the Reds had been what us fans had hoped for. Can’t really blame the guy for injuries, though.
He never had a steroid body, and the injuries, in my opinion, are evidence that he did NOT use, since one of their primary uses is recovery from injuries.
He’s one of the rare power hitters of the steroid era whose name never came up in the whispers or rumors (or who was flat out exposed). Unless and until there’s some kind of good evidence to suspect him, I think he’s entitled to the presumption that he played clean.
Wow, what a bummer. Here he is chattin’ with my F-I-L during a game last year. We see a lot of players from that vantage, some nice and some not, but I think Ken is one of the most engaging, charismatic guys out there… and what a talent. Shortly after this was taken and after a Ranger fan was giving him some good natured ribbing, Ken walks up to the plate and POW, dingers out to center at 4 something. Heh, cracked us all up, especially when he crosses the plate, turns toward the guy and gives this huge, shit eatin’ grin.
Thanks for the memories, Mr. Griffey, you were a pleasure to watch.
Steroids help injuries heal. Frankly, you could take injuries as circumstantial evidence he DIDN’T use. In the cases of McGwire and Bonds, the effect of steroids in making them recover from injury probably added more homers to their career totals than the effect of steroids making them stronger.
Junior was a magnificent player. People talk about his injuries a lot, but a lot of players get injured in their 30s so I don’t see what’s so unusual about that. He had a very long career - well over 2600 games, if memory serves, which is a lot even by Hall of Fame standards. A clear cut all-time great.
I think the reason that his injuries get talked about a lot was their frequency and their severity, causing him to miss many more games than another player that would have less serious nagging injuries. Hell, i remember one of his groin tear injuries was so severe that it required his groin muscle to essentially be bolted to the pelvic bone to repair it.
Another thing is that pretty much all his injuries were the result of him going all out on a play. Junior rarely sandbagged it except maybe on an obvious out at first, but lots of players do that “I know I’m going to be out” jog to the bag.