Junior showing how 'The Kid' used to do it

[CincyRedsFan30]

Junior showing how 'The Kid' used to do it

Column by The Post's Lonnie Wheeler

Ted Williams had the wars. Ken Griffey Jr. had the hamstrings.

The icons met Sunday at home run 521, and both would be marked down for many more if not for the time they could never recover. If numbers defined them, the games they missed would be most unfortunate.

But Williams' legacy embraces much more than the lovely left-handed hitting, at which, many say, he was the best ever. Teddy Ballgame was a hero of both World War II and the Korean War, flying 38 combat missions in the latter. It cost him five years of splendid slugging, which cost him about 150 home runs, which cost him nothing as a great American.

"His lifetime batting average is what, .340?" said Griffey, whom humility becomes. (Actually, it was .344.) "OK. He went to war. I don't put myself in that category, with all the things he's done in baseball; and he fought for his country, too. I just play baseball. This guy sacrificed his life for his country.

"I could never live up to that. I just happened to tie his name."

Hamstrings aren't like being shot at over the ocean, but Griffey's, for all the pain and disappointments they have occasioned, have made him a fuller figure in the game he once flew with. Without them - without missing about 1,200 at-bats over the past four seasons - he would have passed Williams long ago, along with Willie McCovey, who was also caught Sunday when Griffey's line drive landed in the Colorado bullpen. And, by now, Jimmie Foxx and Mickey Mantle and Mike Schmidt and Rafael Palmeiro and Reggie Jackson and Harmon Killebrew and Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire and probably even Frank Robinson, No. 5 all-time with 586.

Had he been a healthy Red all these forgettable years, he would have continued on his lofty path toward Babe Ruth; toward becoming, perhaps, the most celebrated ballplayer since the Sultan himself. He was, officially, the player of the 1990s. He was, unofficially, charmed.

Now, in his fifth hometown season, Griffey is much different. He is no longer the most gifted player in the game. He is, perhaps, its stubbornest.

The most recent injury was the worst. It happened last year, after he tore his hamstring in July and came back in August, playing right field for a game, and tore it again, this time clean off the bone. It was so bad that Dr. Tim Kremchek abandoned the conventional treatments and screwed the thing back in place.

There remains the image of Griffey tooling into the ballpark last summer in a harness, on a scooter. It would have been pitiful if he hadn't smiled so much. Somehow, he seemed undiscouraged.

Character appears suddenly in some people, belying the fact that it was always there, out of sight to the undiscerning. With Griffey, to whom things seemed easier than they could have possibly been, the fighting-through was something that his particular greatness actually needed. If four years of unrelenting rehabilitation haven't fattened his fabulous career, they have profoundly dignified it.

This is a man who, in the struggles of his spring, was advised by Jim Rome to retire. He didn't hit his season's first home run until April 30, on his 80th at-bat.

"When you come back from an injury like he did, it takes a little bit to get going," said Sean Casey, who homered - his first of 2005 at Great American Ball Park - just before Griffey with two outs in Sunday's sixth inning. (Javier Valentin's subsequent grand slam ended the sudden scoring at six.) "It's funny, because the first month of the season everybody was talking about how Ken Griffey Jr. doesn't have a home run, and now he's got 20.

"It's really neat to look up at his numbers now, and they're staggering. That's Ken Griffey Jr. It's fun to be his teammate and his friend. He's back to being that special player, the guy you'd pay good money to watch."

Since his April drought, Griffey has averaged one long ball per every 12.25 times at bat, a pace that would place him high among the league leaders. If it keeps up, he'll finish the summer with 40 homers, the same number he hit in 2000, his first Cincinnati season.

If he somehow manages that remarkable feat, it will at least supply a story line for the long months ahead. It will enable Griffey to climb higher in the pantheon of power hitters.

"You know what's great?" mused Casey. "We're talking about Ted Williams and Willie McCovey right now. Years from now, we'll be talking about (somebody catching) Ken Griffey Jr."

In the meantime, Junior is appreciating the illustrious company. As a big-leaguer's son, he maintains a refreshing reverence for those who came before him. He remembers, as a superstar kid, Ted Williams brusquely pulling him aside at an awards function to instruct him on driving the ball. He remembers, as a 35-year-old comeback player less than two weeks ago in San Francisco, spending a poignant hour with McCovey as the hobbled Hall of Famer sat on a golf cart.

"That's what baseball's about," Griffey said Sunday. "The older generation talking to the younger generation. That's part of the tradition, allowing those guys to come back and share their experiences with us."

In his 17th season, Junior, too, is now sharing his experience with the younger guys. With one black bat and two able legs, he's showing them how he used to do it, back in the day.

Contact Lonnie Wheeler at lwheeler@cincypost.com.

[missionhockey21]

Teddy Ballgame was a hero of both World War II and the Korean War, flying 38 combat missions in the latter. It cost him five years of splendid slugging, which cost him about 150 home runs, which cost him nothing as a great American.

I know most fans know this fact but when you really think about it... it's pretty damn amazing. Not only that he was such a hero but the fact that he could come back and still hit great with such a long time off and the traumatic experience of war. Wow.

Character appears suddenly in some people, belying the fact that it was always there, out of sight to the undiscerning. With Griffey, to whom things seemed easier than they could have possibly been, the fighting-through was something that his particular greatness actually needed. If four years of unrelenting rehabilitation haven't fattened his fabulous career, they have profoundly dignified it.

This is a man who, in the struggles of his spring, was advised by Jim Rome to retire. He didn't hit his season's first home run until April 30, on his 80th at-bat.

Griffey really is a man of character and to be honest, it makes me ashamed of Cincy for the way he was treated. The heckling when injured, the idiotic calls to WLW, bozo's like Furman with his insults. I think sometimes people forget that athletes are human, they aren't just there to entertain us 24/7. Sadly most of the hecklers don't have a group of thousands of people watching them at work, hissing and booing everytime they goof.


Good article!

[realmofotalk]

This is a man who, in the struggles of his spring, was advised by Jim Rome to retire.

Wtf is Jim Rome to advise other people what to do?

[Geki Ace]

I'd like to advise Jim Rome to stick a shotgun in his mouth.