The Home Run Leader Retires

[lupi]

Or at least the one who was suposed to take that title before being wrecked by injury.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5244661



SEATTLE -- Ken Griffey Jr. retired Wednesday night, ending one of the great careers in baseball history.

The 40-year-old Griffey told the Mariners that he was done playing, and manager Don Wakamatsu made the announcement before Seattle faced Minnesota.

"While I feel I am still able to make a contribution on the field and nobody in the Mariners front office has asked me to retire, I told the Mariners when I met with them prior to the 2009 season and was invited back that I will never allow myself to become a distraction," Griffey said in a statement.

"I feel that without enough occasional starts to be sharper coming off the bench, my continued presence as a player would be an unfair distraction to my teammates and their success as a team is what the ultimate goal should be," he said.

Griffey was hitting only .184 with no homers and seven RBIs this year and recently went a week without playing. There was a report earlier this season -- which Griffey denied -- that he'd fallen asleep in the clubhouse during a game.

Griffey was a perennial All-Star outfielder and ranks fifth on the career home run list with 630. He won an MVP award and was a Gold Glover. The only thing missing on his resume was a trip to the World Series.

A star from the get-go, he played 22 years in the majors with Seattle, his hometown Cincinnati Reds and the Chicago White Sox. He hit .284 lifetime with 1,836 RBIs.

For a time in the 1990s, he was considered the best player in baseball. But then injuries began to take their toll and his production started to decline.

 

[Perknose]

Junior was a natural, one of the very best ever, and a lock to go into the HOF in his first year of eligibility.

It seems fairly apparent that he never juiced either, as his head didn't mysteriously grow to three times its normal size nor did he suddenly start hitting twice as many dingers later in his career like those twin turd buckets, Bonds and McGuire.

He played most of his glory years in the major media boondocks of Seattle, else he'd have been far better known to the general populace.

A series of injuries did slow him down mightily the last several years or he would have reached an honest 700 PLUS career dingers.

One of the truly fine ones! :thumbsup:

 

[Zebo]

Junior was a natural, one of the very best ever, and a lock to go into the HOF in his first year of eligibility.

It seems fairly apparent that he never juiced either, as his head didn't mysteriously grow to three times its normal size nor did he suddenly start hitting twice as many dingers later in his career like those twin turd buckets, Bonds and McGuire.

He played most of his glory years in the major media boondocks of Seattle, else he'd have been far better known to the general populace.

A series of injuries did slow him down mightily the last several years or he would have reached an honest 700 PLUS career dingers.

One of the truly fine ones! :thumbsup:

Believe it or not smallest guys juice the most because they have to. Juice is not all about size but primarily recovery, working out for longer periods and increases base strength all things being equal. What was that little bitty 135 lb SS recently busted?


Not saying he did though...when all yes all pro athletes juice.

 

[MrMatt]

The GOAT just retired. I love Babe Ruth, but he never played against any minority players. Hank Aaron wasn't the 5 tool player KG was. Barry Bonds...gtfo.

 

[thepd7]

Believe it or not smallest guys juice the most because they have to. Juice is not all about size but primarily recovery, working out for longer periods and increases base strength all things being equal. What was that little bitty 135 lb SS recently busted?


Not saying he did though...when all yes all pro athletes juice.

You're right that the biggest benefit is recovery time, which is exactly why I think he didn't juice. Someone who juiced wouldn't have spent as much time on the IR as he did.

 

[LikeLinus]

Junior was a natural, one of the very best ever, and a lock to go into the HOF in his first year of eligibility.

It seems fairly apparent that he never juiced either, as his head didn't mysteriously grow to three times its normal size nor did he suddenly start hitting twice as many dingers later in his career like those twin turd buckets, Bonds and McGuire.

He played most of his glory years in the major media boondocks of Seattle, else he'd have been far better known to the general populace.

A series of injuries did slow him down mightily the last several years or he would have reached an honest 700 PLUS career dingers.

One of the truly fine ones! :thumbsup:

He had one of the sweetest swings in baseball. It was great to see him during the Home Run Derby with his hat backwards and that smile he always had...he made the people around him have fun.

All around great guy and you never heard a single teammate say a bad thing about him. Sorry to see him retire.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

junior, perhaps the most overrated baseball player of all time.

 

[zinfamous]

junior, perhaps the most overrated baseball player of all time.

BlahBlahYouToo, perhaps the most overrated human of all time.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

BlahBlahYouToo, perhaps the most overrated human of all time.

No, I don't think anyone's rated BBYT at all, ever.

 

[Farang]

The Double.

Thanks Junior.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

The GOAT just retired. I love Babe Ruth, but he never played against any minority players. Hank Aaron wasn't the 5 tool player KG was. Barry Bonds...gtfo.

KG played in the juiced ball era. Babe started in the dead ball era. Babe had a year when he hit more HR's than some teams.

Babe was so fundamental to the construction of modern baseball that there really is no way anyone could actually be better than him.

 

[lupi]

Tim K. ranks him as the 5th best center fielder of all time. Check the AL stats, he was the HR leader like 5 times during the 90s. I believe another stat going for him is only Mays had more golden gloves at the position.


The real shame is what happened to Seattle. Just think of all the players they had that were collected through the draft on traded as minor leaguers, many of whom later went to play if not win the series with other teams. Griffey was kept in decent regard with his previous team though, left for what he called home and money wasn't nearly as much an issue and with the shortly thereafter departure of Afraud for reasons all but "a better chance to win", any other free agency loss became much less meaningful.

 

[SP33Demon]

The GOAT just retired. I love Babe Ruth, but he never played against any minority players. Hank Aaron wasn't the 5 tool player KG was. Barry Bonds...gtfo.

You do know that Griffey Jr is good friends with Bonds and regularly invites him over for dinner at his FL home? While I'm not about to say that Jr juiced, it still raises some suspicion in my eyes because you will be judged by the company you keep... and Bonds is a POS, adultering cheater.

However, from foxsports:

Jeff Pearlman’s biography of Bonds, “Love Me, Hate Me,” included an extraordinary account of a dinner conversation between Bonds and Griffey following the 1998 season.

According to the book, Bonds told Griffey, “As much I’ve complained about McGwire and Canseco and all of the bull with steroids, I’m tired of fighting it. I turn 35 this year. I’ve got three or four seasons left, and I wanna get paid. I’m just gonna start using some hard-core stuff, and hopefully it won’t hurt my body. Then I’ll get out of the game and be done with it.”

Griffey said later that he didn’t recall the exchange, but the book quoted him as saying, “If I can’t do it myself, then I’m not going to do it. When I’m retired, I want them to at least be able to say, ‘There’s no question in our minds that he did it the right way.’ I have kids. I don’t want them to think their dad’s a cheater.’”

Hopefully that's true!

In any case, I was glad I got to see Jr when he played the O's a couple weeks back at Camden Yards. It was raining and there were only <1,000 people left in the stands but we all gave him a standing ovation when he came to pinch hit in the 9th. I snapped a couple of pics. He hit a towering drive for an out on the warning track; but just for that second, while the ball was in the air, the magic of Jr was back. /salute

 

[edro]

It's really going to suck when it comes out that he was on steroids.

 

[geecee]

Junior was a hell of a player, although admittedly, I was seeing him play mostly against the Yankees over the years. Beautiful lefty swing. Injuries definitely took a toll on his career numbers. He lost several seasons to injury, and who knows what his final numbers might have been had he been able to stay healthy.

 

[BrokenVisage]

Never liked Junior much but he had one of the prettiest left-handed HR swings ever, a Ryan Howard swing with a Ted Williams frame. You simply can't call him the HR leader though, that's foolish. Injuries more than other people alledgedly juicing did him in more than anything, it's sad but true, but that's sports. You can't have a subjective measuring stick with baseball statistics, what's done is done.

Well, now maybe he can catch up on his Z's (yeah, we all know you fell asleep in the clubhouse, way to be classy and deny it then allow for the crusade against that life-long reporter to happen just for reporting what 2 player sources confirmed.. loser)