Why Baseball Needs Griffey Again.

[missionhockey21]

Let’s face it, if America was a party, it would suck at this moment. Money is tight so the grub would likely be generic brand and a few days past expiration and the keg would be missing so you would likely have to hit the water tap instead. Your party hosts are not optimists but realists and would set an appropriate somber tone with the music to be played, all public domain songs of course. If this wasn’t bad enough, the one game that has been counted on to get America through tough times, be it war or the struggle for equality, has once highly held baseball heroes plummeting to Earth. We don’t care why a player like ARod juiced just like we don’t care why the party sucks, we’re just ticked off about the end result.

The price of tickets aren’t getting any cheaper, most clubs were handicapped financially this offseason, Rodriguez juiced his way to becoming the best paid player in the game and the US Government is spending money like it’s going out of style. I don’t know about you, but money is an issue that is making me a bit bitter right now. I need something to take my mind away cold harsh realities and to a place of pure bliss. Baseball can be that place.

One of the many reasons why baseball is such a beautiful game is that the inaction is sometimes as important as the actual action of the game. You take time to think about the player, his slumps, his hot streaks, his mentality versus a certain pitcher, how he plays at home and so on. Other sports move too rapidly to allow for this kind of analysis to take place in your mind during a game. If you also consider how we are able to see each player’s face and that baseball players typically have the longest careers over the longest season in professional sports, baseball heroes are unlike any sport hero. And that is exactly what baseball needs right now, for new heroes to emerge and past heroes to reemerge for both the sake of a game that has been tainted in the steroids era and in an America that desperately needs the national pastime to become important once again.

There are so many things to be cynical over today and that includes baseball but last season one visual in my mind took the cake. In August 2008 we saw Ken Griffey Jr. wearing a black uniform. What is this, Hollywood (Chicago) Ken Griffey Jr.? Sure Griffey wasn’t turned into a villain as Hulk Hogan was, but it felt that way. Griffey labored through the 2008 season, obviously in pain, struggled to reach 600, and was traded for a bag of balls to the White Sox; it was ALL wrong. That shouldn’t have been his ending and it won’t be now that Seattle has brought him back to the stadium built thanks to the most exciting player I grew up watching.

Why Griffey? Why now? Griffey is most prodigious slugger of the 90’s to be mentioned along the likes of Bonds, Sosa, McGuire, and Rodriguez in terms of historic power and to not have his name mentioned in connection with steroids. The game has been tainted, we know this. We know that one day we will tell our grandchildren about how the idols of baseball betrayed their fans and the game by spitting in the face of rules and cheating for the pursuit of glory and contracts. Griffey’s name has remained clean throughout this, which adds to the tragedy of his injuries as we might have had a homerun king who was steroids free sitting number one. That did not happen as we all know but Griffey could still play savior to the game.

Griffey doesn’t need to play another year. He makes more money from the deferred salary he’ll get yearly from the Reds than the contract he signed for this offseason. Seattle on paper is not a World Series favorite so its not likely that he is lacing up his cleats for a shot at that elusive ring. Could Griffey be playing for something a little more pure, like love for the game? Maybe, maybe not, but it sure is nice to think that he might be.

There are some truths about Griffey that are unavoidable. First, he is a disaster in the outfield and unless his weight loss and repaired knee has boosted his speed, he will continue to be a roaming disaster lacking the range of an average outfielder. Secondly, he cannot hit lefthanders, period. He has not been able to post a decent RHP/LHP since 2005, his Comeback Player of The Year season. Plus, he is 39 years old, taking the expression “the wrong side of 30” to new extremes. But there is hope. Griffey played on a bum knee in 2008 that limited the full ability of his swing (ie power), a knee which was drained three times last year and required arthroscopic surgery in the offseason. He’s also shed some weight as he has been pretty bulky looking for the last couple of seasons, and not bulky like a Barry Bonds bulk. With a more trim physique and his legs healthy, one might imagine a power rebound for Griffey and I would venture that will prove true.

Griffey is not like what he once was as a Mariner, or even his good days with the Reds, but he is coming into a situation that could really prove beneficial if used correctly. Unless his knee limited his ability to turn on a ball from a lefthander, Seattle should sit him. Unless he can play a league average leftfield, Seattle should sit him. See a pattern here? Griffey should accept regular DH time to preserve his health and maximize his energy, avoid the temptation to pull for the fences on every pitch and instead continue his almost late era Willie Mays plate discipline to Seattle, and accept his age. Seattle fans should not expect him to pick up where he left off in 1999 nor should they cry for Griffey to play CF outside of a one inning stint to open up the season and give them a thrill. If you are friends with the kind of fan who doesn’t recognize baseball until its April, please try to deflate any unrealistic hopes they might have… again, I am talking about the super casual fan.

Unlike with the Reds, Griffey has not been brought in to build a franchise around (nice job BTW Cincinnati) but he has been brought in for the fans and out of appreciation for what he did for the team and the city. We do not want to remember Griffey as a broken down player who stayed beyond his welcome so play him to his strengths and build him back up to what his name can conjure up for the most casual of fans, a love for the game. Griffey at 39 going on 40, slugging righthanders to the tune of a .900 OPS, 320 hits away from 3,000, and 50 homeruns away from 4th place on the homerun leader list is something fans of any team can root for. Griffey could be a hero again for young kids, earn the admiration from fans of other teams and become the face of baseball again. Griffey has shunned the media for many years now since his injuries, lets hope he can embrace it and the spotlight. Griffey playing to the best of his abilities and taking up the persona of ‘The Kid’ again is what baseball needs, they certainly need it more than Hollywood Ken Griffey Jr.

Baseball needs him to go out with as much of a bang as he can muster and not with a whimper. Baseball needs The Kid, the backwards hat, the smile, and the fun. Griffey made baseball fun for me and my generation. We imitated that swing (which is almost the equivalent of porn in baseball,) the catches and of course spinning out hat 180 degrees from front to back. But more than that, Griffey is charismatic, a good man, and a good father. There are few that can match his level of charisma and talent, so baseball should take advantage of it while it still can. Maybe Griffey can make the most cynical of fans remember why they love this game so much once and make them feel like a kid at heart when thinking about baseball again. I know I would rather imitate swings and hat turns than think about how the collapse of the dollar is affecting global markets or why cheaters have been rewarded so much over the last two decades.

[love_that_reefer]

Homerun, mission! Great article and it will be good to see Griffey in a M's uniform. Maybe the M's can bring back Jay Buhner or Edgar Martinez to through out the first pitch to Griffey this year. I would like to see that. Griffey's knees seem to be in great shape according to the early reports so hopefully he will force the team to keep him in the lineup.