Ken Griffey Jr. was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday with former New York Mets catcher Mike Piazza, but in his news conference Saturday, Griffey took a moment to talk about Ortiz.
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Piazza’s Phoenixville roots didn’t go unnoticed in his eloquent induction speech Sunday. Thank you dad. We made it, dad. At the end of the day, however, Piazza’s induction should open the door for other suspected PED cheats. Instead, as Senior, sitting in the audience of families, hung his head and wept, Junior spoke of a more important feat. Griffey praised the Mariners and the Seattle fans. Seeing him get inducted into the Hall of Fame is something that is not a surprise, I don’t think. We would pray to witness him step on to the diamond and hit one of his iconic home-runs.
Selected in the draft by the Dodgers after Hall of Fame manager Tommy Lasorda, a close friend of Piazza’a father, Vince, put in a good word, Piazza struggled. Griffey later met the Marino children when the Reds played the Mets in NY in July 2002.
“You gave me big league at-bats in spring training when I was a green, wide-eyed kid out of junior college”.
So although Griffey’s Hall of Fame plaque, which he labeled “awesome, just awesome” has his hat on forward, his speech forever will be remembered with a backward cap – a look he made all his own in baseball. He became the first to go in as a Mariner, the first as a No. 1 overall draft pick and the first to get 99.32 percent of the votes.
A 13-time All-Star and 10-time Gold Glove Award victor in center field, Griffey hit 630 home runs, sixth all-time, and drove in 1,836 runs. Two years later, he had his last standout season – 144 games, 30 homers, 93 RBIs – and earned his final All-Star Game selection.
The retired Major League Baseball stars were added to the shrine Sunday in ceremonies that drew 50,000 people to the small town in upstate NY known as the birthplace of the American pastime. “Now is the time to smell the roses”.
“If you work hard and you do the things that you’re supposed to do, you get rewarded”, Griffey said. Playing the most demanding position in the field, Bench hit 389 career home runs, leading the National League twice, and drove in 1,376 runs, leading the league three times in RBI.
Each inductee gave a lengthy speech while at the podium, as is tradition for all Hall of Fame inductees year-in and year-out.
“If I didn’t get any hits, you weren’t going to get any hits”.
“Nothing can prepare you for those emotions that you feel, because of everything the Hall encompasses and the history that was behind us on that stage”, Piazza said, noting 48 Hall of Famers on hand to watch their latest colleagues.
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But Griffey’s hesitations and slight falters – his father, Ken Griffey Sr., called them “miscues on some quotes” and said he’d delight in ribbing him at the appropriate time – only added to the impact of his 20-minute address.
