Recent happenings surrounding Mike Piazza, Manny Ramirez and Ken Griffey Jr. caused me pause when considering the perception of Junior’s career.
PIazza recently retired, finishing as, in the opinion of many, the games best hitting catcher. I have memories of watching piercing line drives off the bat of Johnny Bench, so I place Piazza second and nearly third; a Yoigiism ahed of Mr. Berra.
Manny Ramirez has cruised past the 500-home run mark – Manny being Manny. Manny’s a little goofy and that may be a reason I’ve frequently left him off my fantasy baseball teams, much to the chegrin of me. He’s been a consistent masher of homers and RBI throughout his career and appears to have a lot of mashing left in his bats.
Now, take a look at Ken Griffey Junior. Finally, the kid gets to 600 home runs. I think it took him about thirty years. It seems that long agosince he was a shining star playing his games in the middle of the night somewhere north of Los Angeles. The Mariners were a sinking ship, then along came Junior.
Griffey ostensibly left the Seattle Mariners partly because Alex Rodriguez’s star was shining brighter. Off to Cincinnati he goes, for redder pastures. He was to be the superstar of the Reds. Fans across the country waited . . . and waited . . . and waited . . . for Ken Griffey Junior to light up the sky with bombs bursting in air, over Ohio.
It’s never happened. Has Junior been a star in Cincinnati? Have the Reds won anything more than half their games since his arrival? Do LIttle Leaguers think of Ken Griffey Junior as anyone more than some outfielder on the Reds?
Griffey will get his due. He’ll be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. More importantly, he’ll be a Hall of Fame product of the Steroid Era. After he retires and the five-year Hall of Fame waiting period begins ticking away, perusing of his career will begin and his huge youngster-era numbers will come more to light; the body of his work will rise to the top, where the cream of the crop belongs.
