Ken Griffey Jr. - The Induction of a Legend

 

Today my childhood idol, Ken Griffey Jr. is going to get inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame. It's bittersweet for me, because for years I had planned on attending his induction, but was unable to do so because of our trip this summer. Absolutely no regrets - you always pick your own experiences over admiring someone else's. But it would have been a truly special day to celebrate the induction of someone I idolized as a kid.

To understand why Griffey means so much to me, I need to explain a bit about my childhood. Maybe even more so than now, I was obsessed with baseball as a kid. I played little league, I collected tens of thousand of baseball cards (all of which still reside in my parents' basement), and watched games from around the league. While now I'm much more focused on the Phillies, as a kid the Phillies sucked, so I was much more focused on the whole league and its stars - and Griffey shined far brighter than any other. So before there was Chase Utley, there was Ken Griffey Jr.

Griffey was the super cool, laid back guy with the majestic lefty swing who wore his hat backwards. His nickname, "The Kid," was so appropriate because when you watched him play, you felt like you were watching a kid on the diamond - having fun without a care in the world. He appeared in Nike commercials that I still remember to this day that made him seem even larger than life to an adolescent boy.

 

As such, this adolescent boy did everything in his power to take in as much of Griffey's stardom as possible. I collected his baseball card more aggressively than any other player. When it was all said and done, I probably amassed over 200 Griffey cards. I named my AOL screen name (Grifjr) and first email address (grifjr2002@yahoo.com) after him. I had posters hanging on my wall. I bought his jersey and countless t-shirts, all of which are still sitting in a box in my parents's house. His number, 24, was and still is one of my lucky numbers. I was fortunate enough that my Dad let me stay up late one night in October 1995 to watch the Mariners epic ALDS victory over the Yankees where Griffey scored the winning run and ended up on the bottom of a pile of his teammates, grin from ear to ear. That image is one of the most enduring of my childhood.

 

So congrats to The Kid on entering the Hall of Fame today in Cooperstown, NY. You had one hell of a career, one that I will never forget. You're a legend, and legends never die. Thanks for the lifetime worth of memories.

Jeff