Return of the King in Seattle
As Forrest Gump always put it whenever he was hanging out with his best friend, “Jenny and me were like peas and carrots again.”
Right now, a lot of baseball fans — including myself — are saying the same thing about Ken Griffey Jr. and the Seattle Mariners, after Griffey signed with the Seattle Mariners yesterday, passing over the Atlanta Braves.
While seeing my favorite baseball player of all time back home brings back fond memories, I can’t help but feel great for those Seattle fans that have been through one of the worst fan stretches in sports history.
Imagine a sports year where your baseball team loses over 100 games (amid preseason hopes for a Wildcard berth), your basketball team is hijacked to Oklahoma City (WTF?) and your football team’s best players only meet to huddle in the training room during a disastrous season.
That’s why the return of Junior Griffey to the Mariners is just what the Doctor ordered to help a torchered fan base overcome the loss of the Seattle Supersonics, an abysmal 4-12 Seahawk team and a Mariners team that went for a league-worst 61-101 in ‘08.
From 1989 to 1999, the man with the smoothest swing and slickest fielding in all of baseball patroled centerfield in the Kingdome and hit third in a potent Seattle lineup that went to the playoffs in ‘95 and ‘97. During his time in the Pacific Northwest, Griffey won 10 Gold Gloves and led the league in spectacular catches (like Willie Mays Hayes in Major League), he played in five All-Star games (and was the 1992 All-Star MVP), and he was the American League’s Most Valuable Player in 1997 when he hit 56 home runs (back when that meant something). He was also the fastest ever to hit 400 home runs — before Alex A-Roid Rodriguez broke that mark.
In short, he was baseball’s best player and the most fun to watch.
Upon his blockbuster trade to the Cincinnati Reds before the 2000 season, Griffey was the odds on favorite to be the one to challenge Hank Aaron’s home run record.
Meanwhile, the man most fans compared him to during his career, Barry Bonds, was himself at a career crossroads. Despite putting up Hall of Fame numbers in his own right, Bonds grew jealous of all the attention that Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa had generated during the ‘98 Home Run Chase. Knowing that he needed to bulk up, Bonds actually talked to Griffey about maybe taking steroids thing when he visited Junior’s offseason home in Florida in the late 90s.
Bonds, deciding to sell his soul, gave in to temptation and saw his numbers reach Ruthian proportions — hitting a single-season record 73 home runs in 2001 before breaking the All-Time record in 2007.
As we all know, red was not the best color for Junior — who stayed clear of the “cream and clear.”
After hitting 40 home runs in his first season in Cinci, hamstring injuries — forgive me for the pun — hamstrung him for parts of the next four seasons. While Bonds was juicing balls over the fence at unprecedented levels in the Bay Area, Junior never got over 370 at-bats in any of those seasons and lost his chance at Hammerin’ Hank’s mark.
While Bonds began to wane in the 2005 season when he missed all but some late weeks in September with knee problems, Junior’s career had a resurgence. Griffey reminded everyone that — when healthy — he still has some pop in his perfect swing. He hit 92 home runs from 2005 to 2007 and became the sixth player ever (fourth clean of the juice) to reach 600 home runs in 2008.
Not bad for a man whose career seemed to be over just a few seasons before. Meanwhile, it seems ironic that man forever linked to him, Bonds, watched his career wither away even as his broke the All-Time Home Run Record. Ironic, huh?
Even though Griffey is now in twilight years of his Hall of Fame baseball career, I don’t think that any Mariners fans will mind much. After all, do you think Forrest Gump minded when Jenny — terminally ill with AIDS — finally came back and married him?
Peas and carrots always belong together.
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