Among the Manny rehashing and Torre bashing that continues in Buster Olney's column on ESPN.com, at least the blog started with some genuinely encouraging news about Junior Griffey. Let's hope that the news about the shape Griffey is in translates to a job somewhere.
Let's face it, the Fan is a fan, and it is impossible to be a fan of baseball and not want to see Griffey succeed someplace for one more year at least. Griffey has that smile and that ease and that class that would leave too big a hole if he didn't get a shot somewhere.
Griffey has been exemplary his entire career. There have been no whispers, no talk of ego, not talk of steroids or HGH or battles with management or other players. There has just been a joy about playing baseball and doing what he loves to do.
It doesn't really matter for how history will perceive Griffey on whether he continues playing or even if he does well if he plays. His career is already first ballot Hall of Fame. Man, we're talking about a guy with 611 career homers and over 1700 RBI. We're talking about a guy who, for a four year span between 1996 through 1999, averaged 52 homers and 141 RBI and a .618 Slugging Percentage. That is a stretch that even the great Alex Rodriguez hasn't matched.
And all the while, he was a star who knew how fortunate he was and smiled and enjoyed every minute of it. He was and is a star for everyone and fans everywhere have to hope he has one more year in him and if he does, some team will understand the fans enough to give it to him.
And sweetest of all, it would be great if that team would be Seattle, or if not there, a contender that would put him on the grand stage one more time.
1 comment:
Some team NEEDS to sign Griffey. Preferably a team in contention. The man doesn't deserve to go out like this. Let him go out on his terms. He's entitled to that much; he's one of the great ones.
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