Thursday, November 12, 2009

Ugh. They Should Have Retired

Ken Griffey Jr. has always been a Fan favorite. And it was fine for him to have a swan song season in Seattle. But it should have ended there. Instead, the Kid has signed on for another year and once again, all an admiring and thankful Fan can do is hope that the latest off-season surgery will help.

The same with Jason Varitek. Other than leading the league in blocking balls in the dirt, Varitek no longer has anything to offer. His offense is gone and his throwing is gone too. But the Red Sox foolishing offered Varitek an option year and he took it. Now the Red Sox will have to endure another season of awkwardness with Victor Martinez playing first at times to keep him in the lineup.

4 comments:

Navin Vaswani (@eyebleaf) said...

It's so hard to say goodbye.

At least Varitek is entertaining. It's a lot of laughs to watch 8 guys steal bag on him. In one game.

bobook said...

Just watching Grif's swing is enough for me. I don't care if he strikes out every time-- when that sweet swing and disposition enter the batter's box every baseball fan wins.
As far as Varitek, hebleets is right-- AL East opponents can write-off the bloody Sox as long as he's behind the plate. I can't see this as anything more than an actus gratitudo. Hell, Toronto might even be able to catch them this year!

Josh Borenstein said...

To say that both of these guys are at the twilight of their careers is an understatement.

I imagine watching Griffey right now is almost on a par with watching Willie Mays end his career with the Mets.

Favre may be annoying, but at least he still plays at a high level.

Anonymous said...

It's very hard to leave, but every additional year Griffey plays, people will forget a bit more on how great he was. And newbie fans will just see him as a some rag holding on to add to his stats.

It's brutal to look up Griffey's who was the biggest star of the nineties, and be horified by the poor numbers he put up last year. His season before Seattle warranted one last season but
.214 .324 .411 does not warrant another. It can't be money issues. He's made ample funding over his career, and that's not even including the countless endorsements and videogames.

Varitek should just retire and become a coach already.