It's Never Iffy if its Griffey

In the clubhouse after slugging his 60th homerun in September 1927, Babe Ruth shouted "60. Count em. 60. Lets see some other son of a bitch do that!"

We have no record of similar boasts when the Great Bambino eclipsed 600 homeruns for his career but, knowing the Babe, some sort of grand pronouncement may very well have followed that historic homer as well.

Ken Griffey Jr joined the 600 homer club earlier this week. The 600 club, once a super-exclusive secret society of Ruth, Mays and Aaron, has swelled in ranks in recent years but still remains open to only a very select membership. Griffey Jr deserves great heaps of praise for his career achievement.

The rising generation of young baseball fans never saw the classic Ken Griffey Jr, who, along with Frank Thomas, terrorized American League pitching in the 1990s and made regular appearances in the nightmares of an elementary school-aged boy growing up outside of Baltimore. On more than one occasion, i woke up in a cold sweat because my pleasant dream of the Orioles winning the American League had turned terrifying with the sudden and unfortunate appearance of Ken Griffey Jr in the batters box.

Despite the wild orgy of homeruns which defined the past 10+ seasons of big league ball, Griffey remains the only batsman to hit a ball off of the storied B&O Warehouse in deep rightfield at Baltimore's Camden Yards. Sure he only did it in All-Star Game batting practice. But still. A ball went from his bat to the bricks of the warehouse. No one else has managed that feat.

Griffey's early 90s popularity had to be experienced to be fully understood. He was on a Simpsons Episode. (Burns recruited him for the company softball team but before the big game, Griffey ended up with gigantism!) The cool kids on little league teams had Griffey's Nike cleats. We wore our hats backwards during infield and outfield practice to look like Griffey. He was, basically, the face of the sport. Think David Ortiz, but without the annoying association with the Red Sox. A quick youtube search brings the following gems:

Upper Deck

Nike

Nike again (This might have been the nightmare causer.)

He made an appearance on Fresh Prince!

Another Nightmare causer

Everyone makes a weird one

And...

The Greatest Athlete Commercial Ever.

During my freshman year at Georgetown, James Carville came and spoke in one of the auditoriums on campus. Afterwards, the ragin cagin walked out to his car surrounded by a decent sized crowd of students. I was among them. I still don't know why I did it, but, when he turned my way as were were walking through campus I blurted out that I had loved the "Griffey for President" commercials. Carville busted out laughing, exclaimed "Wasn't that somethin!" and then went back to laughing. My moment with one of America's best political minds, and I talked about a Nike commercial. And the thing is, I stand by my decision. I can still see him busting up when i asked the question. "Griffey for President" was worthy of that moment!

The year prior to the Griffey for President campaign, Junior had teamed with Randy Johnson to take the seemingly doomed Seattle Mariners on a magical run through September to leapfrog the California Angels and win the American League West. Then, to the consternation of the sporting world, the upstart Mariners somehow knocked off the Yankees in dramatic fashion in the 1995 ALDS. All whispers of the demise of baseball in the great northwest were silenced.

Then the seemingly immortal Griffey became frail.

John Greenleaf Whittier left us with the immortal words "For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: It might have been." The legendary poet described Griffey perfectly. Since moving to Cincinatti in 2000, Griffey has yet to appear in more than 144 games in a season. He's had a couple of impressive summers, twice slugging more than 30 homers in a season for the Reds. But, a look at his numbers since he switched cities is enough to make even the man of the most stalwart constitution cringe. Oh what might have been had Ken Griffey Jr not fallen victim to the bubonic injury plague!

If Griffey had managed to club 30 homers in all of the seasons in which he spent significant time on the Disabled List, He would now be 2 shy of catching Willie Mays on the all-time list. 700 would be fully within reach for his career. Had Griffey sustained his late 90's production levels into this decade, we might well be asking ourselves now "Can he reach 800? Can he?"

We can only wonder!

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