So Long, Junior

This morning as I was watching Sportscenter I learned that Ken Griffey Jr. had retired after 22 seasons in the Major Leagues. I wrote about Griffey back when he hit his 600th home run, but now that he has retired, I just wanted to make a couple of remarks about his career.

Although I still love baseball and expect that I always will, my obsession with baseball likely reached its peak in the early to mid 90s. At that point I played league baseball every year, watched every Braves game I had access to, spent every cent I could scrape together on packs of baseball cards, and each baseball season I devoted every ounce of free time I could to the imaginary baseball league I created in the back yard (I would play all the games myself and keep stats for all the players; it was pretty awesome in an OCD kind of way).

And during that time, Ken Griffey Jr. was the undisputed king of the baseball world. You could maybe even argue that we was the king of the entire sporting world—everyone respected Michael Jordan, but they liked Griffey. And how could you not? He did everything well and seemed to have such a good time doing it.

As time went on though, Griffey started to suffer through a string of injuries which somewhat limited his production, while at the same time a lot of other players suddenly got really muscular and started jacking home runs in quantities that made Griffey’s numbers look modest by comparison. At the time, Griffey was often overlooked because of this, but in the long run, I think it’s what will secure his legacy—he hit 630 home runs over his 22-year career, and he did it the right way. Only Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and Willie Mays could make the same claim, and that’s impressive company.

Finally, Griffey retiring is kind of sad for me personally as it sort of marks the end of an era—the up and coming young superstar of my youth is now too old to play. If “The Kid”—who always wore his hat backwards in batting practice while blowing big bubbles with his gum—has to retire, I guess all of us are getting older, huh?

Griffey Headed To The…Mariners

So it appears that Ken Griffey Jr. is headed to the Seattle Mariners instead of the Atlanta Braves. This might not be too surprising since Jr. spent the first 11 years of his career as a Mariner, except that a story appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday saying that Griffey was on his way to becoming a Brave.

Making matters somewhat more complicated is the rumor that Griffey became angry when he learned of the AJC’s story on Tuesday, and consequently changed his mind about going to Atlanta.

A few quick reactions to this story:

(1) Right about now, I’d hate to be one of the Journal-Constitution writers who published Tuesday’s article.

(2) If Ken Griffey Jr. really changed his mind about where he was going to play based on his reactions to reading a newspaper article, he’s incredibly fickle. So fickle in fact, that I doubt that was the real reason for his decision.

(3) As I’ve written before, I’m a fan of Griffey, and I would’ve been incredibly disappointed about him changing his mind about being a Brave…if it was 2000. But it’s not, it’s 2009. In the eight seasons since 2000, Griffey’s numbers haven’t exactly been mind-boggling. Hampered by injuries, he’s averaged just under 100 hits a year with 22 home runs, 63 RBI, a .270 BA and a .500 SLG.

Those aren’t bad numbers, and they’re certainly better numbers than what we got from our outfielders last season, but at the same time they’re not exactly earth-shattering. So mark down my disappointment level as “mild.”

(4) Frank Wren, the Atlanta GM, must be getting tired of wiping egg off his face this offseason. First he gets completely punked by Rafael Furcal, then he risks death by mob violence when he basically writes off John Smoltz, and now this. I’m starting to get the feeling that his tenure as Braves’ GM won’t last as long as his predecessor’s.

Maddux Calls It A Career

Greg Maddux announced his retirement from Major League Baseball on Monday.

I grew up watching Maddux and the other members of Atlanta’s Big Three, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz, baffle hitters and win lots of games.

Maddux was my least favorite of the three (he arrived in Atlanta last and always seemed somewhat like a hired gun), but he was also the best, and he put up some historically shocking numbers in the mid 1990s.

Really, Maddux was also most representative of the great Atlanta teams of the 90s and early 2000s—an absolute terror over the long course of the season who suddenly became mortal when the playoffs rolled around (Maddux was just 11-11 in the postseason during his 11 seasons with the Braves).

Maddux retired with 355 career victories, 8th on the all-time list and one ahead of Roger Clemens, which I think is significant, and appropriate.

Significant because I think Maddux wanted to finish ahead of the Rocket, and appropriate because I think he deserved to.

For much of the two pitchers’ careers, the debate raged about which was the greatest pitcher of the era. Over recent years, the argument had tilted in favor of Clemens, who continued to be one of the best pitchers in the game while Maddux increasingly looked like a 40 year-old who used to be good (eerily similar to what happened with Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr.).

Of course, then all the allegations of Clemens’ steroid use came out, and Roger joined the ranks of Bonds, Mark McGwire and the rest of the baseball stars who have fallen from grace.

And his sudden distancing of himself statistically from Maddux late in their careers made a lot more sense.

Clemens (like Bonds) was a great player who possibly could have been the best of his era, but Maddux (like Griffey) came by his numbers cleanly and deserves the distinction instead.

And really, maybe that would be the most fitting legacy of all for the Steroid Era.

“The Kid” at 600

Ken Griffey Jr. made history Monday night by becoming just the sixth player in Major League History to hit 600 home runs.

If you watch a lot of ESPN, you knew that he was approaching the milestone, but otherwise, you might have been unaware, because it hasn’t really been talked about too much. The way Griffey hit the home run was somewhat fitting: on the road, at a largely empty Dolphin Stadium in front of just 16,000 fans.

Why does no one seem to care about such an achievement from Griffey, once the most popular baseball player on the planet?

This article offers some ideas. First, the fact that Griffey plays in small-market Cincinnati certainly doesn’t help. When Alex Rodriguez approaches 600 home runs in New York, he’ll certainly get more coverage.

It’s also true that Junior has battled one injury after another ever since he started playing for the Reds, and that has whittled away at the enormous fanfare that he once enjoyed. Just ask Grant Hill or Nomar Garciaparra—as an athlete, it’s hard to stay popular when you never get to play.

But likely the biggest reason is the fact that a home run just ain’t worth what it used to be. Ever since 1998, when McGwire, Sosa, and their enormous bodies started the assault on all of the home run records, each successive milestone has seemed less and less impressive.

Hitting 500 home runs used to be a special thing, but nowadays, it’s almost commonplace, and 600 doesn’t seem that much more exciting.

But in Griffey’s case, we should be excited.

Not only a great player on the field, he’s also been a great ambassador for the game. He’s not surly with reporters, he’s been a positive role model, and in this era, maybe most importantly of all, there’s never been any hint of steroid use.

He’s not perfect. People have called him greedy, and they’ve questioned whether or not he’s a winner, but at the end of the day, Griffey is one of the greatest players of all time, and he did it the right way.

As he got older, his body began to break down. He couldn’t make the spectacular plays in the outfield, didn’t have the speed on the basepath, and much of the time couldn’t seem to stay in the lineup.

But when you think about it, that’s the way it’s supposed to happen. It may have happened a little bit too soon for Griffey, but still it was right—as we get older, our bodies break down. They can’t do the same things they used to. And “The Natural,” who early in his career lived up to his nickname with his seemingly unending talent, lived up to it later in his career by making the most out of what his body could give him without enhancing it with drugs.

In an era where the alternative has become all too common, and we’ve seen the artificially inflated bodies and numbers of player after player, Junior should be applauded for doing the right thing.

But there’s an important lesson there too, I guess. Sometimes when you do the right thing, you don’t get recognized for it. You don’t get the credit or the acclaim you deserve. But the acclaim isn’t what’s important.

Doing the right thing is.