In the late-80s baseball cards were crappy. Pictures were fuzzy, prints were off-center, the material was cheap, and even though you got a stick of gum in a pack (the taste of which went bad after about .000002 seconds) that stick of gum would often put a pink rectangular stain right across Rickey Henderson's cardboard face. But people didn't know any better. This was it as far as baseball cards were concerned. They were cheap to produce and the kids still bought 'em. And besides that, the Topps company was king of the card market. There were other smaller competitors like Donruss and Fleer, but Topps had been the top dog for so long that nobody could even attempt to dethrone them. Crappy cards, it appeared, were here to stay.
But in 1989 a new company called Upper Deck produced its inaugural set of baseball cards. The cards were glossy, the images were crisp, and -- holy smokies -- there were holographic stamps on the back! Other company's baseball cards looked (and actually were) cheap by comparison. Things would never be the same. Within a few years everybody would mimic Upper Deck's standards and image. Card quality, along with card costs, would rise.
Upper Deck needed somebody special to be the #1 card of that game-changing 1989 set. He had to be good at baseball, naturally, but he also needed to be young. These weren't your grandpappy's ball cards. Mr. Number One also needed to represent the future and a new era of sports.
Taking a big gamble, they chose a ballplayer who had yet to play a single Major League inning. They chose a ballplayer who, for his picture, was still wearing a Minor League uniform. They chose a teenager, a talented kid with a talented pedigree.
They chose a smiling, confident, gold-chain wearing Ken Griffey, Jr.
This was probably the best gamble in the history of gambles. That year in 1989 he broke into the big leagues and finished 3rd in the Rookie Of The Year voting. The next season he won the first of his ten Gold Glove awards and was voted into the first of his 13 All-Star games. The year after that he won the first of his seven Silver Slugger awards. Thanks in part to Griffey's success, Upper Deck had established itself as the premier card company. Griffey, meanwhile, had established himself not only as the new face of the Mariners, but as the new face of baseball.
Early on Junior was garnering comparisons to his father who, through a rare confluence of age and talent, was still playing Major League baseball. Senior had been a good consistent hitter since the early 1970s, a significant member of the Big Red Machine of the late 70s, and the MVP of the 1980 All-Star game. In August of 1990, Dad Griffey signed with the Seattle Mariners and joined his son in the outfield.
This situation was as bizarre as it was celebrated. There they were, father and son, playing outfield for the Mariners together. Nothing like this had ever happened before. It was simultaneously weird and awesome. They were having fun together (Junior always looked like he was having fun anyway), jostling each other and being good sports for the media. They posed for odd pictures. Sometimes Junior would steal a pop-fly his father was set to catch. They once even hit back-to-back home runs. It was like watching the end of Field Of Dreams every single day.
Dad retired in 1991, but Junior was still rising, exceeding all expectations anybody ever had of him. He was a great and graceful fielder, swift and agile, but it was nothing compared to his hitting.
Ken Griffey, Jr. had the smoothest, easiest, most natural-looking swing of any player I've seen. If God Himself was Junior's hitting coach it couldn't have looked any better. His mechanics appeared so easy to replicate that anybody could have been duped into thinking they had a big league swing. And it was impossible to fathom how that gliding swing could send a baseball 450 feet away. It was the perfect swing, and Griffey brought it with him every time he came to the plate.
With his stellar play, good looks, killer smile, and great marketability, by the mid-1990s Griffey had become a superstar. He had Nike endorsements, Wheaties, Nintendo games, Simpsons cameos, and prevented the Twins from going to the playoffs in Little Big League. In 1995 he took the Mariners to their first ever American League Championship Series appearance.
He was also hitting home runs at an accelerated rate. The 1994 season was shortened due to the players' strike and a wrist injury cut his 1995 season in half (he smashed his gloved hand into the outfield wall while making a successful leaping catch), but even so between 1993 and 2000 Griffey averaged 44 home runs a season, or a home run every 11.88 at-bats. Before he turned 30 years-old people were already speculating when he would break Hank Aaron's all-time home run record.
Before the 2000 season Griffey was traded to the Cincinnati Reds for four players. His numbers were down a little bit that season (hitting .271 with "only" 40 home runs and "only" 118 RBIs), but it would be the last great Griffey-esque Major League season he would ever have. Seattle fans were sad to see him go as the Kid had been the face of the franchise for the past decade, but after the 2000 season the M's would acquire an aggressive and nimble outfielder from the Orix Blue Waves. If anybody could make Seattle forget about Junior, it would be Ichiro.
Despite enjoying a relatively healthy career up to this point, Griffey suddenly and inexplicably became injury prone. It was as if Griffey's kryptonite was Ohio water, and every time he took a shower he ended up on the disabled list.
- In 2001 he missed 45 games after injuring his left hamstring.
- In 2002 he missed 41 games after injuring his knee, missed about 30 games after injuring his right hamstring, and missed a smattering of other games due to injured hips and thighs and legs.
- In 2003 he missed 33 games due to a shoulder injury and missed the final 68 games of the season due to an injured right ankle.
- In 2004 he missed 71 total games due to his injured right hamstring.
- In 2005 he missed the final 26 games of the season due to a foot injury (though he was still named the Comeback Player of the Year).
- In 2006 he missed 26 games due to an injury to his right knee.
His injuries became a running joke. It was virtually expected that Ken Griffey, Jr. would miss at least a quarter of the season due to a strained or broken somethingrather. My favorite lick came from The Dugout, a cussy webcomic that pretends baseball players use AOL chatrooms. Griffey's screen name was Elijah_Price.
Griffey, when healthy, was still productive, but the all-time home run record became an impossibility. All that remained were smaller personal milestones, the finishing touches upon a Hall of Fame career.
2007 was a resurgent year for Griffey. Despite missing games due to a chest injury, a groin injury, the flu, and something called pleurisy, he still played 144 games, hit 30 home runs, batted a semi-respectable .277, and was voted into his final All-Star Game.
A quick note about that 2007 All-Star game --
Still with Cincinnatti and representing the National League, Griffey had two RBIs in that game. However his Seattle replacement, Ichiro Suzuki, stole the show with an inside-the-park home run, the first in All-Star history. Griffey, once the embodiment of the future of baseball, was now overshadowed by the next generation of stars.*
[*A disclaimer, and really just a quick mention about how peculiar Ichiro really is. Even though it seems Ichiro can play forever, the man is only four years younger than Griffey. He came to the Majors at the age of 27, which would normally qualify him for "late bloomer" status were it not for the fact he spent his formidable years conquering Japanese baseball. Anyway, Ichiro will get his own entry soon enough.]
2008 turned out to be a season of footnotes as Griffey became the sixth player to hit 600 career home runs. It wasn't 755, but it would do. Later that year he was traded by the Reds -- along with some cash -- to the White Sox for two non-stars. It was strange to see him in a Chicago jersey, as if he were merely playing those games in nice pajamas. It was a forgettable 41-game stint and he was granted free agency at the end of the season.
Griffey was on his last legs, and Seattle did a very nice thing by signing him for the 2009 season. He had made the franchise relevant in the 1990s, and even if he played a limited role in those final years signing Griffey was the least the team could do.
However his return turned out to be more sad than dignified. The Kid, now a father himself, was clearly older now. His slender frame had been replaced with a pudgier one. The speed that made him a Gold Glove outfielder was gone. The coordination and quickness that made him one of the most feared hitters in baseball, also gone. All that remained were his name, his image, and that sweet swing. For some people that was enough, relying on their decade-old memories to fill in the blank spots. But for a team trying to compete it was not enough. Griffey spent an increasing amount of time riding the bench, pinch-hitting here and there, a symbol more than an active player.
Then one day in 2010, completely out of the blue, he called it a day. That was it. The Major League career of Ken Griffey, Jr. was over.
Even though the disappointing latter half of Griffey's career is still fresh in our minds, when he becomes eligible for the Hall of Fame in four years it won't be the injuries or the frustration or the White Sox uniform we remember. It will be the swing, the style, and the hundreds of home runs. We'll remember the toothy teenager on the front of Upper Deck card #1. We'll remember Junior -- The Kid -- and how he changed the game twenty years ago.
