Ken Griffey Jr. has officially been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. “If you look at the greatest center fielders to ever play this game, we’ve probably got a shelf life of 12 years because we run into walls and we just have a different mentality than anybody else on the field”.
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“Many of you give me praise for the two-run home run in the first game back on September 21 to push ahead of the rival Braves”.
“I know Griff for a long time, when I came up with Seattle”, said Ortiz, who was a minor leaguer with the Mariners from 1994-1996.
Needless to say, Griffey deserved to be enshrined on the first ballot. “He knew my dad and knew who his friend was (Hall of Famer and Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda), yet he still made me work to earn a place on the varsity team”. “They say, ‘Don’t look at your kids until you have to, ‘” Griffey said. Griffey, a 13-time All Star and 10-time Gold Glove Award victor, told the crowd he is “damn proud to be a Seattle Mariner”, and there are “two misconceptions about me – I didn’t work hard and everything I did I made look easy”.
“When we showed up at the site (for the ceremonies), he said, ‘You gotta do it, you gotta do it, ‘” Griffey said. Griffey was the No. 1 overall pick in the 1987 draft, while the Dodgers selected Piazza with the 1,390th overall pick in 1988. And though he talked about his close friend, former Mariners right fielder Jay Buhner – “my brother from another mother” – there was no mention of Lou Piniella nor, for that matter, anybody associated with the team’s front office during Griffey’s glory years in Seattle. Unfortunately, 1998 was the year of the attention-absorbing, PED-fueled home run duel between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, who hit 70 and 66, respectively.
He ended his speech by putting on a Mariners hat and turning it backward, a trademark of a great playing career that was derailed in its latter stages by injury. “Now is the time to smell the roses”.
“We have a special bond and it’s not about baseball”, Griffey said.
“We made it Dad”, said Piazza, choking back tears.
And then it all clicked nearly suddenly for Piazza, hitting 52 home runs in the minors before getting called up by the Dodgers in September 1992.
But then I thought about it some more…and realized that the Mike Piazza trade was one of the most important in franchise history. Each speech contained both heartfelt and humorous moments recalled from years of baseball experiences and memories.
It was a privilege to watch Junior and his awesome career and we will likely never see a hitter with his natural ability and charisma for a long time, if ever.
So, as the story goes, Griffey Jr. would turn it around to keep the bill of the cap from falling down his face.
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“Looking out today at the sea of all the blue and orange brings back the greatest time of my life, you guys are serious” said Mike Piazza.
