Happy Griffey Day!
Wow, it finally happened. Ken Griffey Jr. is coming back to Seattle.
The emotions I am feeling are relief and surprise, not joy. I’ve been so beaten down by the events of the past year that I assumed the Ms front office would find a way to eff this up. But they didn’t, and know we get a reason to come out to the park every day.
And as this rap attests, we won’t have to worry about fire alarms not being pulled:
The Way I Swing (ft. Ken Griffey Jr.) – Kid Sensation
Ken Griffey Jr. left an indelible mark on nearly every American male, especially those of us that were eight or nine when he first made it to the majors. He had the top spot on lockdown in the Beckett Hot List (above David Justice) I learned how to swing left-handed (well, tried) to emulate him in my back yard.
In the early 90s our family would pile into the Dodge van and drive all the way to Seattle, just to see the crappy Mariners play. Why? Because Griffey might just do something you’d never seen that night. (And also because they played the guitar part to Thunderstruck on a loop by the ticket window – it’s amazing what you remember from your childhood.)
Please take a moment to post your remembrances of The Kid in the comments section below. I know you all have some!
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I got goose bumps when I heard he was coming back. I remember watching the game he and his pops went back-to-back dongs and hearing whoever was on the TV telecast at the time, Niehaus or whoever, say that no father and son have ever hit back-to-back dongs and BOOOOOM, it was out of the yard.
The Kid made us strong baseball fans and want to watch a team that couldn’t win…until ‘95. He is going to make me fly to Seattle to see opening day…and hopefully for the first pitch…He is in center field.
Can we reunite Mix and Kid Sensation too? They’ve both got to be available.
Honestly, I wouldn’t even know where to start. I think the fact that I bought Griffey’s first baseball card (Bellingham) at a card show at the Green Lake Community Center when I was in fifth grade, and am now trying to find a picture of him to put on the cover of the magazine I edit at age 32 pretty much sums it up, no?
Although, ok — my first vivid one is of an inside-the-park home run he hit at the Kingdome his rookie year. It was a line-drive off of the leftfielder’s glove and all the way to the wall, and I remember starting to look back toward the field thinking — hey, he might have a chance for a triple — but when my eyes got back to the infield GRIFFEY WAS ROUNDING THIRD. He was so fast back then.
I don’t remember the exact game, but after it happened one of my (many) goals in life has been to rob a homer. I watched Griffey track a ball hit to deep center field, time his leap against the wall, and pull back a sure homer. He had this huge smile on his face and whoever was the announcer, Niehaus most likely, was going nuts. I am gonna go ahead and claim that Griffey invented robbing homers.
I was at the game where he hit a HR for the 8th consecutive game and the crowd in the Kingdome was going bonkers. Then I went to the next game when he had a chance to break the record. Every time he was up to bat I remember thousands of camera flashes going off and the crowd would just start screaming in anticipation every time he made contact with the ball. During that game he belted a laser to right-center that hit about 2 feet below the top of the wall. If he had gotten under that ball just a little bit it would have been gone.
Jeff Miller’s dad had a friend or someone who knew Griffey’s agent and in his rookie year he paid him to come over to their house after a game (seriously). Griff rolls over in his White Mercedes 190 with gold trim, his girlfriend and girlfriend’s kid in tow. Griffey signed a couple hundred cards, balls, bats, pictures, etc. in Jeff’s living room. I had him personally autograph my Donruss rookie card, which was then placed in a hard plastic sleeve. At this point I had no idea that I was meeting the man I wanted to marry. About 2 years later I went to take the card out to show it off and it stuck to the plastic and ripped. Devastating.
What is this “Urban Rivals” shit ad? I will not click on it until I get an explanation.