Griffey racked up stellar numbers on the field, blasting towering home runs and making acrobatic, leaping catches to rob homers and diving stabs to steal extra-base hits. He was the 1993 National League Rookie of the Year, a 12-time All-Star and won the NL Silver Slugger Award 10 straight years from 1993 to 2002.
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Piazza, a 12-time All-Star and former Rookie of the Year, owns the Major League Baseball record for most home runs by a catcher with 396. “He is what made me fall in love with baseball”.
And finally, he had a few words for his father, Vince. “The race is over. Now it’s time to smell the roses”.
Up next was The Kid. He finished his career as a lifetime.284 hitter with 630 home runs (sixth-most in history), 1,836 RBI and 1,662 runs scored. He homered in his first at-bat in the Kingdome, and he was 19 years old.
David Ortiz’s Hall of Fame chances have been a topic of debate long before the Boston Red Sox slugger announced the 2016 season would be his last, but Big Papi got an endorsement from one of the greatest baseball players of all time.
Further, Griffey is the first-ever number one overall pick to be enshrined into Cooperstown, which sounds a bit surprising, but the draft didn’t start until 1965. Griffey broke down again when he thanked “his brother from another mother, Jay Buhner”. “But I knew that there was a reason I was there, and I knew there was a reason I had to see it through”. “A guy who spoke the truth, even if you didn’t want to hear it”.
“Many of you give me praise for the two-run home run in the first game back on September 21 to push us ahead of the rival Braves”, Piazza said. “I’m very proud to be a Seattle Mariner”.
He didn’t decide to turn his cap backward – a signature moment from the most popular player of his generation – until he got to the Clark Sports Center in Cooperstown … Griffey called his wife and asked her to find a hat for him and a friend dropped it off before Junior’s speech. The Seattle Mariners made Ken Griffey Jr. the first pick of the 1987 amateur draft and a year later the Dodgers selected Mike Piazza on the 62nd round with the 1,390th pick.
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For that reason, it was fitting for them to reach Cooperstown together. Both talked about what it meant to be inducted into the Hall of Fame and what the inspiration in their life has been.
