The timing is nice, a reprieve from partisan politics and the many sad and weighty issues dominating the news in recent weeks.
Today is the day Ken Griffey Jr. will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Thirty-nine years after Diego Segui threw the first pitch in franchise history, Griffey becomes the first player to be enshrined wearing a Mariners cap.
Griffey was more than the sum total of 630 home runs, 10 Gold Gloves, 13 All-Star appearances and other gaudy numbers.
He injected hope and energy to a region accustomed to bad baseball. He added an octave to Dave Neihaus’ “Swung on and belted” home run calls. He made the hard look easy. He brought joy to spring that lasted into the fall.
Below, four former Herald baseball writers share a few Griffey memories, beginning on an eventful Wednesday evening in Everett.
Vince Bruun
I covered the Everett Giants from 1984 to 1988 when they were managed first by the immortal Rocky Bridges and later by a former big-league infielder named Joe Strain.
It was pro ball, yes, but players, though talented, were mainly afterthoughts. Unlike their counterparts in the NFL or NBA, first-round draft choices in Major League Baseball rarely are household names. Especially not in 1987 before the advent of the Internet and social media.
Those were great times in Everett. The Giants were the city’s first pro team and a lively one at that. Led by club owners Bob and Margaret Bavasi, the Giants were masters at creating a buzz at the ballpark, offering up a long and wacky list of promotions, complemented by first-rate concessions and innovative stereo PA music. Factor in relatively reasonable pricing and pro baseball was an immediate hit in Everett.
So generally speaking, games at Everett Memorial Stadium were mainly centered on a fun night at the ballpark.
The night of June 17, 1987, was totally different. In their home opener the Giants played host to the Bellingham Mariners, who were led by mighty 17-year-old phenom Ken Griffey Jr., who had been drafted first overall by the Seattle Mariners just 10 days earlier. Atypical for a baseball player drafted out of high school, everyone knew about Ken Griffey Jr. and his man-child exploits at Cincinnati’s famed Moeller High School. TV crews and reporters were everywhere. I was even asked by The Associated Press if Griffey’s playing in Everett was the biggest story in city history.
Although Everett was affiliated with the San Francisco Giants, it was still Mariners’ territory and Ken Griffey Jr. was seen as savior of the struggling franchise. After signing with the Mariners, he’d practically torn out a row of seats in a well-publicized Kingdome workout. And now here he was in Everett, a lean, 17-year-old kid playing in just his second pro game. (Griffey went hitless the previous night in Bellingham’s home opener).
I recall overhearing a conversation between Bob Bavasi and Tom Lafferty, the club’s public-address announcer, on how Griffey was to be announced in pre-game introductions. Since Griffey played for the visitors, they decided to keep it low-key.
Griffey was given a big ovation anyway, and received an even bigger one after unloading a 387-foot opposite-field homer off Gil Heredia in the fifth inning. Thing is, Griffey didn’t get all of it, and he just kind of muscled it over the fence. With his wrists. Even then it was easy to project a bulked-up Griffey with his sweet swing overpowering big leaguers in no time at all.
Even so, who would have guessed that 29 years later Griffey would be inducted into the Hall of Fame? Probably a lot of people, including The Herald’s own Jim Muhlstein, who requested my score sheet from the night Griffey hit his first pro homer in Everett. Unfortunately, Mr. Muhlstein passed away a few years ago, but he was right all along. He said it would make a great memento since Griffey was ticketed for Cooperstown.
Vince Bruun wrote for The Herald from 1980 to 1989 before becoming a publicist for thoroughbred racing in three states. Today he is director of media relations at Emerald Downs in Auburn.
John McDonald
Unfortunately for me — and the Seattle Mariners — Ken Griffey Jr. was not a member of any of the teams I covered. I began reporting on the M’s after the All Star break in 1978 and my last season was 1988, the year before Griffey made his major-league debut.
I was on the beat in 1987 when Griffey was selected first in the annual June draft. He was introduced to the media at the Kingdome before being assigned to the M’s minor-league affiliate at Bellingham in the Northwest League.
Vince Bruun, who had the Everett Giants (now AquaSox) beat for The Herald in those days, is probably a rich man today because of all the Griffey memorabilia he collected while covering the Bellingham vs. Everett games.
But I did have the opportunity to cover one memorable Griffey game for the M’s.
In 1993, Griffey had homered in an MLB record-tying eight consecutive games, leading into a July 29 game at the Kingdome vs. the Minnesota Twins. He came into the game tied with Don Mattingly, who accomplished the feat in 1987 with the New York Yankees, and Dale Long, who set the record in 1956 with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Griffey had four at-bats in that game. He singled in the first inning, doubled in the third — both line drives — and grounded out to second base in the fifth.
In his last at-bat, against left-handed relief pitcher Larry Casian, Griffey popped out to second base. As they say in baseball, he just got under it.
It was a disappointment for the crowd of 45,607. In all, 30,207 had bought tickets that day. M’s traveling secretary Craig Detwiler, who handled player requests for passes, said he’d never known the club to have issued as many freebies in its history.
But it was relief for Griffey. The stress of the streak had begun to tell on him.
John McDonald wrote and edited sports stories at The Herald for 34 years. He is retired and living in Everett, where he enjoys playing golf, traveling, reading and partying with friends.
Bob Bolerjack
Ken Griffey Jr. was in his third big-league season when I covered the Mariners in 1991, and he was beginning to mature as a superstar.
Still just 22, though, he was still very much The Kid.
The effervescent smile fans had grown to love was also at the core of Griffey’s persona in the clubhouse. His playful nature was almost always on display with his teammates and coaches, and even with beat writers, who he delighted in making the targets of (mostly) good-natured wisecracks and practical jokes.
But on the road, where there was more down time in the clubhouse before games, beat writers saw glimpses of a more serious, introspective side, one that seemed to reveal the pressure of expectations Griffey carried on his young shoulders.
During a three-game weekend series in Minnesota, I saw both of those sides up close.
In the Friday night game, which was being televised in Seattle (not all games were back then), Griffey suffered an embarrassing moment. He hit a towering drive to deep right-center field. Apparently thinking it was headed over the fence, he stood at home plate for a moment to admire it. But as it came down, it bounced off the fence. His speed made up for the late start and got him into second base barely ahead of the tag — a close play that should have been a stand-up double, maybe a triple. After the game, he was uncharacteristically subdued, knowing he had committed an inexcusable blunder — and the home fans had been watching.
The very next day, he misplayed one of the most difficult balls for a center fielder — a screaming line drive right at him. He misjudged the ball for just a fraction of a second and moved in, only to have the ball go over his head to the wall.
He was nowhere to be found after that game. We learned the next day that he had taken the mistakes in back-to-back games very hard, and had spent a long time after the Saturday game in a heart-to-heart phone call with his dad, who wasn’t with the club on that trip.
I couldn’t help but feel for The Kid. He was only human, after all. Not hustling out of the box on Friday was a learning experience. Misjudging a hard line drive to center happens to all outfielders, even the best.
So when I arrived in the clubhouse before the Sunday game, and spotted him talking with some teammates and coaches, I joined the conversation. What happened next not only showed me Griffey’s emotional resilience, it taught me that I had no place in that kind of clubhouse discussion.
I told him that I had recently misjudged a similar line drive while shagging balls during early batting practice. (One of the perks of being a traveling beat writer.) I had moved in on the ball, then watched it sail over my head.
Griffey, proving he had already put the past two games behind him, gave me an incredulous look and said, “Oh, like you’re Willie Mays or something.”
Laughter erupted, led by a loud Griffey cackle. Clearly, he’d be OK without any help from a naive beat writer.
Bob Bolerjack also served as sports editor, news editor and editorial page editor for The Herald. Today he is executive director of governmental affairs for the City of Everett.
Kirby Arnold
There couldn’t have been a better way to end a career.
The Mariners had just beaten the Texas Rangers in the final game of the 2009 season and, with 85 victories, winning baseball and good vibes, had returned to Safeco Field. What unfolded was something I’ll never forget.
The team took a victory lap around the field, thanking the fans, and just behind third base the players hoisted Ken Griffey Jr. and carried him to the dugout. If there was a storybook way to send Seattle’s biggest sports star into retirement, this was how it should happen.
But it wasn’t how Griffey said he would go out.
Seven months earlier, he had returned to the Mariners clearly near the end of his career, and we all wondered if the 2009 season would be his last. We asked that question the day he walked into the clubhouse at spring training and several times during the season, and his answer always was the same.
If he ever became a distraction, he would leave.
“You guys will know when you walk in here and there’s a note on my locker that says, ‘He gone!’” Griffey said.
No emotional announcement. No retirement tour.
So why should we have been surprised when Griffey decided to come back in 2010? I didn’t like the idea, mostly because nothing could match the way he left the field in 2009.
His legs hurt and his swing never came around in 2010. He lost playing time and then, amid reports that he was sleeping in the clubhouse during a game, he indeed became a distraction. On June 3, he drove home to Florida, calling the Mariners from the road to say he was retiring.
He gone. Just as he said (without the note on his locker).
Few in baseball leave the way they’d like. Age slows the most skilled, and the end often comes without glory. But it shouldn’t diminish who they were.
Griffey is the best player I’ve seen, and I saw a lot of Mays and Musial when I was a kid. Nobody had a combination of speed, power, grace and charisma like Griffey. And the longer I covered the Mariners, the more I learned of things he did that were never publicized.
I heard about one team employee who’d had some tough luck, and that Griffey paid for his kid’s college tuition. I asked the employee if I could write that story, among other tales of his philanthropy, and he said I could if Griffey said it was OK. Griffey said no. He doesn’t do those things for attention.
He often told us he didn’t play baseball for attention, and he hated talking about himself after his great performances.
Today, he will get the game’s highest honor. And the glory he deserves.
Kirby Arnold covered the Mariners for The Herald from 1999 until 2011, when he retired. He wrote “Tales from the Seattle Mariners Dugout,” which was published in 2007. He splits his time between homes in Lynnwood and Goodyear, Arizona, and stays busy with family, including three grandchildren, plus a lot of golf and fishing.
In the Sports section, retired Herald sports columnist Larry Henry — now 75 and still running five miles a day — recalls the spring Griffey broke into the big leagues. Inside the section is a full-page poster of “The Kid” and his career highlights.
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