SEATTLE (AP) -Junior’s not so junior any more.
The Ken Griffey Jr. who started scaling outfield walls for miraculous catches and clearing them for majestic home runs two decades ago in Seattle? He’s put away, in the barn.
“Used to be a thoroughbred,” the 39-year-old slugger said, joking about how he plodded his way through his first spring training with the Mariners since 1999.
Baseball’s active leader in home runs (611), hits (2,680), runs scored (1,612) and RBIs (1,772) is likely to be a designated hitter – the role he has always hated – as much as a left fielder in his 21st, and perhaps final, season.
He had arthroscopic knee surgery in October, and the left knee was swollen through the end of February. It was the latest in a string of injuries that have derailed much of his exquisite career.
and skill.
“They remember a young 19-year-old, no facial hair, a little high-top fade (haircut), running around, smiling,” Griffey said of Seattle’s fans. “A little different now. Got a little gray – don’t know where that came from.”
He does know his career is in its final furlong. That’s the reason for this storybook return, to end his extraordinary career in the same place it extraordinarily began 20 springs ago as a teenage starting center fielder with his cap on backward, his game on an elite level and his smile on all the time.
Judging by his incessant cackling, joking and smiling this spring, he couldn’t be happier.
“I’ve got an opportunity to do something that was important to me. Not everybody gets to wear a glass slipper,” Griffey said of realizing a goal he’s had since 2000, soon after Seattle traded him to Cincinnati at his request.
“You always want to start and end your career with the same team. Not saying this is the end of my career, but this is an opportunity to do what I said I was going to do, and that’s come back here,” he said.
He signed a one-year contract with $2 million in salary and a potential for up to $3 million more in bonuses, if he stays healthy and fans flock to Safeco Field to see him.
summer weekends he will spend shuttling teenage daughter Taryn to AAU basketball games across the Southeast, of autumns watching older son Trey in high school football games near the family home in Orlando, Fla.
“That’s one thing I’ve learned: To go out there and play hard, because every play could be your last,” Griffey said. “You are not promised tomorrow, so go out and play as hard as you can.”
“It’s coming up on that. Not too many years left. So you have to think about that, what you are going to do.”
In his first go-around in Seattle, when he was an All-Star in his final 10 seasons with the Mariners, he incessantly teased anyone he saw – teammates, coaches, equipment guys, visitors, the media.
Some of that’s still there. It’s why the Mariners believe Griffey alone can transform what was a divided and bickering clubhouse last year during Seattle’s 101-loss season.
“His personality and character, something about it, he has the ability to change the atmosphere,” said franchise cornerstone Ichiro Suzuki, who first met Griffey when the Japanese star visited him and Michael Jordan in the United States in the mid-90s.
With Suzuki starting the season on the 15-day disabled list because of a bleeding ulcer, the Mariners will be in even more need of Griffey’s clubhouse presence.
beam? Watch as he pulls out of his locker a palm-sized video player. It contains hours of footage from Taryn’s basketball games and Trey’s football contests. Dad recently spent 45 minutes proudly pointing out his favorite plays from his oldest kids, going back years.
He knows those feats far better than the pitchers he will face this season. He did all the filming.
He said leaving the family across the country for the next seven months was the toughest part of his decision to return to Seattle. He did so on the advice of his father, Ken, a fixture on Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine” championship teams of the 1970s, and that of Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, Hall-of-Fame confidants since he was a kid.
“They just said go out and have fun. They didn’t tell me what to do,” Griffey said. “’Make the decision – and don’t look back.”’
Griffey cherishes that he is ending his career on his terms.
“I’ve been fortunate to have a dad play and have him sit there and coach me through some things that most parents won’t understand,” he said. “And one thing he’s said is, ‘No team will treat you like your first.”’
The Mariners are excited that their most marketable player not named Ichiro may – may – also fill the need for a left-handed power bat that has mostly been unfilled since Griffey left nine years ago.
sist adding Griffey is more than just a public-relations coup. The team was averaging about 2,000 total tickets sold per day this winter – until Griffey signed in February. It sold 23,000 individual tickets in the first two days after that.
“We’re cheering for him,” general manager Jack Zduriencik said. “We’re looking forward to this guy having a very nice year for us.”
But how nice? Even Hall of Fame legends who have returned to previous teams or cities seeking a triumphant exit haven’t gotten what they wanted.
In 1972 in his 21st season – exactly where Griffey is in his career now – Mays was traded back to New York, to where had become a Giants superstar two decades earlier. He hit .267 with eight home runs and 19 RBIs in 69 games with the Mets that season. In 1973, he limped to .211 – 91 points lower than his career average – with six home runs in 66 games. He then retired at age 42.
In 1975, at the age of 41, Aaron went from Atlanta back to Milwaukee, where he had spent his first 12 seasons. The career .305 hitter batted just .234 and .229 in two final seasons there. He hit just 12 and then 10 home runs, after averaging 35 homers in his first 21 seasons.
Does Griffey expect a reincarnation of his old, highlight-reel days in Seattle?
9, or even 29 years old.
For him, small ball has replaced over-the-wall ball.
“No, I may not hit 50. May not hit 40. May not hit 30,” he said. “But I can do the little things that baseball is about – getting the guy over and getting him in – (something) you guys don’t look in the box score as a stat, but it helps the ball club win. The biggest thing is to win ball games.
“It’s a little different, you know, now that I’m a little older – just a little,” he said, pinching his thumb and index finger close together.
“It’s not about what one guy does. It’s about the team.”
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