Is Ken Griffey Junior The Sweetest Baseball Player Of All Time?
This is how you accidentally write a Ken Griffey Junior appreciation blog. You start with something notable, like the 30 year anniversary of his first home run. You then get an immediate and overwhelming sense of nostalgia flooding your brain. Within seconds your mind is transported back to a childhood loaded with these kinds of moments
^^Greg Maddux looking fresh in a 1992 Cubs uni btw^^
He basically pioneered the concept of Look Good, Feel Good, Play Good which honestly might be his most lasting contribution to the baseball community. His second most lasting contribution is this BEAUTY:
12 year olds everywhere were asking their hard working parents to shell out $250 for a 13 inch (read: fucking gigantic) baseball glove for no other reason than The Kid made you want it. It was like a basketball shoe movement except twice the price and without any of the unpaid child labor. The sports world had never seen anything like it:
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And there he was 19 years into his MLB career at age 38 making one of the biggest plays in White Sox “regular season” history
But what made everyone everywhere fall in love with Junior was the swing.
One word that repeatedly comes up is effortless, which is usually a telltale sign you’re really fucking good at something.
Junior was on a different planet in that regard. From age 19-29 in Seattle, he hit 398 home runs and won 10 straight gold gloves in centerfield while going top 10 in MVP 7 times. And probably most impressive is that while all of this was going on, he dropped the most fire video game of all time:
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And important to remember – it seemed like every MLB All Star was trying to broker their own branded video game in the 90’s
Even Tony La Russa was in on the action:
As well as Relief Pitching *generally* (so confused by this)
But at the end of the day, only one player Alpha Male is remembered as being #1:
So tip your cap to the guy who invented being cool on a baseball field. Especially now with all the raging debates about whether or not you can bat flip and stare at each other and act like assholes all the time. Wah wah wah. The moral of the story is when you’re as sweet as Junior, you can do whatever you want, even if it means hurting your opponents’ feelings.