Ken Griffey Jr. is a damn fine ballplayer
By After some controversial posts, I thought I would go with this. Griffey hit 496 yesterday, 497 and 498 today.
It’s remarkable that, even after losing two and a half seasons to injury, he still has a fair chance of hitting 600 home runs. Reminds you just how impressive he was for the Mariners in the 1990s. Today he is still an excellent player while healthy, an acceptable center fielder who hits like a good corner outfielder.
Since 1989, Mariner management has managed to squander the careers of four clear Hall of Famers (Griffey, Martinez, Rodriguez, and Johnson), along with a number of middle-great players (Olerud, Boone, Buhner, and Moyer spring to mind). After this season, all that will be gone. A catalogue of this ineptitude would take longer than I’m prepared to spend writing this afternoon. Of all of them, Griffey has always meant the most to me. I almost cried when he suffered his season-ending injury last year, and I’m as delighted as I can be that he’s playing well this season.