TERRY MOSHER
KEN GRIFFEY JR.
I covered Ken Griffey Jr. when he first was chosen (No. 1 overall) in the 1987 June Amateur Draft by the Seattle Mariners and when he first arrived in the big leagues with the club as a 19-year-old right out of spring training two years later and then all 11 years with the team until he asked to be traded to Cincinnati in February of 2000 and have written plenty about him.
But I deliberately did not write about him as he was set to be inducted last Sunday in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. because I knew every Tom, Dick and Mary would be writing plenty of stories about him and I felt that was enough.
Now that it has died down some, I will say a few words. It’s difficult to be honest when describing Griffey without going over the top, as was the wont of several stories I read recently about him. I have lived long enough to realize that there are very few people who play their game, no matter the sport, who do it with flair and a joy that most of the rest of us never do or can’t do. Why, I don’t know, but that is a fact.
Kirby Puckett was one of those guys who played the game of baseball with boundless joy that was not matched and was much loved for that and for the success he had on the field and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2001 with 82 percent of the vote.
Tragically, his life off the field eventually was revealed to be not so good, to put it mildly, and that tarnished his on-field image. Kirby then died 10 years ago at a very young age of 45.
I once interviewed Kirby for a story I did for The Sun. I caught up with him pre-game at the visitors’ clubhouse at the Kingdome and he could not have been nicer. He smiled all the way through the interview and talked honestly about his upbringing in the Chicago Projects where death and drugs were the prevalent activity.
I remember him saying that as a very young kid the deadly gangbangers would leave him alone as he walked the sidewalks with a bat in his hand because they believed and wanted to believe that he had enough talent to escape the projects and could do something good.
In hindsight, I could see how Kirby could lead what amounted to two different lives. Our environment often determines who we become and certainly as I look back at that interview I could see where Kirby found joy and escape from the death and destruction around him in baseball, but the death and destruction and the way of life that forms in an individual could also have affected him to do what he did away from baseball.
But, yes, he played the game with unmatched joy and a big smile and he also will be remembered by me for that.
There was a guy in m high school that I played against in three sports ‑ football, baseball and basketball – and he did those sports very well and with a big smile. He would laugh every time he made a move to get away from me in a pick-up basketball game and while I look back and smile at that, at the time it used to frustrate me.
If you see a pattern here, you are right; it takes an individual with extraordinary talent to smile as he is beating your brains in a sport like Puckett or my high school friend.
That is the way it w as with Griffey. I could imagine that no matter what sport he tried, Griffey would beat you and I and he could do it with a smile, and in baseball with his hat perched backwards on his head.
What is a contradiction about Griffey is that as much as he was the public face of baseball, and saved the sport in Seattle with his smile and his talent, he basically was a shy guy. He did not enjoy the publicity even as the public was attracted to him like a moth to flame.
It used to be frustrating to reach him after a game in the clubhouse with a pack of reporters around him it was difficult to hear him speak because he talked with a soft voice that was the opposite of the way he would goof off with a loud voice before games, especially with the media.
Was he the greatest player I saw in my almost 30 years of covering baseball? I would have to answer he was the greatest centerfielder I have ever seen. He could cover large areas in the gaps, could go back on balls fairly easy and race in on bloopers with ease. He made difficult catches look easy and while visiting media would oh-and-ah with his amazing catches, we who covered him on a regular basis just took those catches with some detachment because we had seen so many of them. I don’t ever remember him losing a ball that flew out his way.
Griffey, of course, had a beautiful swing (as did Mr. Mariner, Alvin Davis). Balls flew off his bat like rockets. The only negative I can think of is that in his last years with the club he struck out more than usual and it was, I thought, because he began trying too hard to hit home runs, a fact that he denied when confronted with it.
But, hey, that is nit-picking.
What I will always most remember about Ken is not related to baseball. He got frustrated with me during one pre-game when I refused to go along with his antics and knocked his hand away from me. Then I got up from the bench in the home dugout and headed back through the tunnel in the Kingdome to the team clubhouse.
I knew I had rattled Ken and I knew he would follow me. He did, and then we got into a friendly sparring match in the middle of the clubhouse before I tired of it and headed to the press elevator for the press box.
Looking back, that was fun. It was just me and him and while some may not believe it, but I discovered I had faster hand-eye coordination then he did, and I give me the win in the sparring match.
Then one time after a night game, I was in my beat-up car at a red light by the King Street railroad station waiting for the light to change en route to getting on the I-5 Freeway and the long drive home across the Narrows Bridge to Bremerton.
As I was idling there at the light I head a car horn honk. I looked over to my right and there was Griffey in a nice and expensive car with a big (bleeping) grin looking over at me. He motioned with his hand like he was running through the gears.
Griffey wanted to drag race me!!!
I’m sure he was just joking around, and I just shook my head and laughed. The light changed green and he roared off, leaving me and my broken-down car stranded at first base as he tore off to home.
Actually, when I look back with the advantage of 20 years in the rearview mirror, those Mariner teams of the middle 90s through 2001, it was just not Griffey who stood out. There was the great lefty, Randy Johnson, the best right-handed hitter I ever saw in Edgar Martinez, one of the best defensive catchers in Dan Wilson, Alex Rodriguez, who I thought would break all of Griffey’s home run records after Griffey became the all-time career home run king (none of that happened), and the team leader, Jay Buhner, who was as blue-collar as they come,, who got the most out of his ability as anybody I have seen, was the chief prankster on the team, and was the most intense, the loudest and the funniest.
The one thing that disappointed me about Griffey’s Hall of Fame induction speech is that he did not take more time to elaborate why Martinez belongs in the Hall of Fame. Edgar belongs in Cooperstown and if he does not get in and David Ortiz does, as is expected, that is really, really going to make me mad.
On top of belonging in Cooperstown, Edgar belongs in the Nice Guy Hall of Fame.
That’s enough for today. I have to get cleaned up for my doctor’s appointment.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.