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This Day In Sports…June 2, 2010:
About a third of the way through the 22nd season in his surefire Hall of Fame career, Ken Griffey Jr. announces his retirement from the Seattle Mariners after leaving the team and driving all night to his home in Florida. Griffey ended up fifth (now seventh) in career home runs with 630, a number that could have been a lot higher were it not for his injury-plagued years in Cincinnati. On the other hand, it’s a number not questioned coming out of the chaotic Steroids Era. Junior and his sweet, sweeping lefthanded swing were considered clean.
Griffey’s first season of minor league baseball was in the Northwest League with the Bellingham Mariners in 1987. He actually played against the Boise Hawks in their first season as a franchise—not at Memorial Stadium, but at Wigle Field at Borah High School. By 1989, Griffey was in Seattle, and in 1995, he scored the most famous run in Mariners history. In the deciding Game 5 of the ALDS, he raced home on an 11th-inning double by Edgar Martinez to end the game and set off a wild celebration in the Kingdome.
“The Kid” was a four-time American League home run champion—all of them coming during his time with the M’s in the 1990s. Griffey’s career-high was 56 in both 1997 and 1998. In 1993, he clubbed a homer in eight straight games to tie a major league record that still stands. Griffey was also a magician in centerfield, making circus catches at the wall and collecting 10 Gold Glove awards, all with Seattle (he also played nine seasons for the Reds and half of one for the Chicago White Sox).
Griffey is the son of Ken Griffey Sr., one of the mainstays of Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine” teams in the 1970s. One of the coolest things early in his career—for the Griffeys and fans alike—was the time they spent together as Mariners. In 1990 they became the first father and son to play on the same team at the same time. Griffey Sr. joined the team in August of that year, and in his first game, he and Junior hit back-to-back singles in the first inning and both scored. Then in September, they became the first father-son duo ever to pair hit back-to-back home runs. The Griffeys appeared in 51 games together before dad retired in June 1991.
Junior’s retirement announcement was actually overshadowed the same night by one of the most disappointing moments in big league history: umpire Jim Joyce’s bad call that resulted in an infield single on what would have been the 27th and final out of a perfect game by Detroit’s Armando Galarraga. Impressive, however, was Joyce’s emotional apology to the pitcher afterward, and Galarraga’s heartfelt acceptance.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
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