Griffey Jr. was elected into the Hall of Fame Wednesday with a record percentage of the vote (99.3) and just confirmed Thursday that he would wear a Mariners hat on his plaque.
Advertisement
Piazza hit.331/.394/.572 in 5½ seasons with the Dodgers, and has better rate stats in Los Angeles than in NY, but he also played in his only World Series with the Mets, and played 7½ years in NY.
The Mariners will always be connected with Griffey Jr., and now, following a Hall of Fame election with a retired number to boot, his long journey that has taken him from Florida to New York City, and finally to Seattle, comes to a nice end.
The plaques will make their public debut July 24 when both are inducted into the Hall in Cooperstown.
Other candidates falling short this year included Mark McGwire (12.3 percent) and Alan Trammell (40.9 percent) in their final years on the ballot.
Griffey also had a brief stint with the White Sox before retiring after a year-plus run with the Mariners. In the first, Griffey hit a 422-foot home run to right-center that landed in the second deck of Seattle’s Kingdome.
“I think I did most of my damage as a Mariner”, Griffey said.
Your Friday morning dose of New York Mets and Major League Baseball news, notes, and links. Speaking at Thursday’s press conference at the New York Athletic Club, Piazza shed light on his decision to enter baseball’s hallowed museum donning a Mets cap instead of Dodgers one.
“I never thought of him as a Hall of Famer when he was younger”, Griffey Sr. said. Without getting into defensive considerations, the answer is that entry into the Hall of Fame for baseball isn’t done with straightforward number crunching.
Griffey was known simply as “Junior” by many as a contrast to his father, three-time All-Star outfielder Ken Griffey, who played alongside him in Seattle during 1990 and ’91.
“The problem was with me and my father”, Griffey told The Seattle Times in 1992.
In today’s game, a player is more likely than not to change their home address a couple of times throughout their career. “The first year of interleague play”.
So, after my conversion some years later to being a Mets fan, I was absolutely thrilled when he was traded to the Flushing Nine at the peak of his powers. “Every time I’ve come back, I’ve been so incredibly honored from the response”.
Advertisement
The only number previously retired by the Mariners is No. 42, which was mandated in 1997 by Major League Baseball as a tribute to Jackie Robinson for breaking the game’s color barrier. Why did only 57.8 percent of the voters put Piazza on their ballots on the first try, and then only 83.0 percent vote for him this year?
