Junior Griffey hit three homers today for the Reds and appears (as mentioned yesterday) poised to resume his brilliant career.

Griffey has never been a popular player outside of Seattle. He's not a Sammy Sosa who is loved wherever he goes. But he is like a lot of players who are disliked for most of their careers but earn grudging respect from the true baseball fan. Most of America thought Eddie Murray was a jerk. He wouldn't talk to the media ensuring that he would have either no press or negative press for most of his career. But while he was winding down his career and you looked at his numbers, you have to whistle and say, "Man, that was a great player."

Roger Clemens is another universally-disliked player. Even many Red Sox, Blue Jay and Yankee fans don't feel much of an affinity for him. But if he can manage to win his 300 games and finish this year on a positive note, he was one hell of a pitcher. I saw him for most of his career and he was a mean one. He followed in the footsteps of Gibson, Drysdale and Ryan and others who were great and part of their greatness was a mean streak. To this day, if the Red Sox weren't so poorly managed in the sixth game of the '86 series, and if Clemens was in the ball game, the curse of the Babe would be dead and buried. By the way, Buckner, another little liked player should in no way be the goat of that series. The game goes down as one of the poorest managed games in the history of MLB. But that's another story for another time.

I remember watching a game at Yankee Stadium in the early 80's when Rickie Henderson was so devestating. In the first inning, Henderson walked and then was thrown out by Munson trying to steal. The Stadium erupted for the simple fact that outside of Oakland, the country hated Henderson. His flamboyant style turned people off. He had a reputation over the years as not being a team guy...but man, look at the numbers. The man was simply one of the best players who ever put on a uniform.

As Bonds explodes here at the tail end of his career, he qualifies for this category. Bonds has always been disliked...by the fans, by some of his teammates and by America in general. But as he caps his career, the true fan has to sit back and smile and wonder if we will ever see such a brilliant talent in our lifetime. So hats off to you, Barry!

Here is the top ten most hated players in my lifetime:

10. Carl Yaztremski - It's amazing how many Boston players could make this list! Carl was a curmudgeon, plain and simple.
9. Tie: Wade Boggs and Jim Rice - I don't know what it was about Rice, but he was good at being disliked. He was close to a Hall of Fame Player! Boggs...well...just say, "Margo"
8. Pete Rose - He was either loved or hated but probably hated more than loved. I personally never forgave him for running over that catcher in the allstar game.
7. Dave Kingman - What a brute. Was it a rat he sent that female sportswriter? Yeesh
6. Steve Garvey - His Dodger blue goody-goody life complete with Barbie-like wife turned people off the same way as perhaps the Osmonds.
5. Barry Bonds - He just wasn't good at playing the popularity game. But what a player!
4. Jose Conseco - He seemed like such a brute. Just watching him sniff during an interview was enough to grate you the wrong way.
3. Albert Belle - Bad, bad man. The world cheered everytime he struck out. But another Hall of Famer had not his hip given out on him.
2. Al Hrbowski - I can't remember how to spell his name, but that act before each batter miffed everyone.
1. Roger Clemens - By a wide, wide margin.

Have your own list? E-mail me at wtasker@maine.rr.com