Ken Griffey Jr. retires the best there ever was

Written by Mike Mariano | 03 June 2010

This post may seem odd for a Phillies blog, but it's mandatory for me to write about Ken Griffey Jr. retiring from the game of baseball yesterday.  See long before I even was the Phillies fan I am today, I was a rabid, fanatic, obsessive Ken Griffey Jr. (and Seattle Mariners) fan.  I'm not sure how it started, or why, but the majority of my childhood was spent fawning over "the Kid" on a daily basis.  I was that kid who loved Griffey.  I had every Griffey toy and trinket you could imagine.  Posters, hats, shirts, jerseys, bobbleheads, baseball cards, it goes on and it never stops.  I wore number 24 on every team (until he switched, so of course I did too).   I spent a lot of time growing up wondering why I couldn't be left-handed or black.  I loved Griffey and lived Griffey until sometime in Cincinnati when the wheels fell off the bus and he more or less rode off into the sunset.

I don't mean to bore you with youthful reminiscing, but Ken Griffey Jr. walking away today brings me back to the baseball fan I grew up as.  It highlights the amazing, yet disappointing career of in my mind the best player to ever don a uniform.  At least, that's what I'll be telling my grandkids one day: I saw Ken Griffey Jr. play and he was the best who ever did it.  Is it a stretch, definitely.  Is it defensible, sort of.  But can I rest easy with my assumptions that if Junior could've stayed healthy, he'd have shattered the all-time home run record?  It helps me get through the nights when I think about what could or should have happened to his career.

I feel bad for the generation of kids who will remember Junior Griffey as an old, brittle outfielder who was all hype and no home runs because damn did they miss out.  One of the game's brightest stars and my idol, it kills me to see Junior go. I want to write more and more and more about this, but I'm at a loss for insightful things to say without rambling for days.  It's over a decade of memories coming rushing back and I can't sort through them all to say anything else intelligent.  So do yourself a favor today and remember "the Kid" in all of his All-Century Team Glory.  The big smile, the perfect swing, the robbed homers, the moon shots, the backwards cap, the iconic nike ads, the cleats, the swingman.  Soak it in, because Junior Griffey retired yesterday at the end of an incredible 22-year-career and it's finally over.