Johnette Howard of Newsday writes about what could have been for Ken Griffey Jr. had he stayed healthy his entire career.
Griffey could’ve gone on to stress how injuries turned his own career into a cautionary tale, or how a lot of so-called “sure things” can go wrong on the way to Cooperstown. He eventually had so many physical problems that some wise-guy comedian came out one year and said he was looking forward to the start of another major-league season, “especially the traditional National League opener featuring the Cincinnati Reds and Ken Griffey Jr. throwing out the first hamstring.”
It was sarcastic. But it also was true. In four of his first five seasons with the Reds, Griffey missed 331 games – an average of 83 in those four years. Entering this season, he was averaging a home run every 14.9 at-bats. If you do the math, he really might have passed Aaron before Bonds did.
But Griffey won’t go there. He seemed determined this weekend to fight off even the slightest suggestions of sentimentality or what-ifs, even on the day when Babe Ruth’s 91-year-old daughter was in the house to give A-Rod a home run award.
You can ask him, all right. But Griffey doesn’t do serious or traffic in regrets.
Though he’s never been accused of using steroids, Griffey won’t even confess to sharing the pride that Mets pitcher Pedro Martinez expressed earlier this season about having the ability to dominate during baseball’s steroid era despite being clean himself.
Griffey just laughed yesterday and said: “Nah. Pitchers have five days to sit around thinking about things like that. I play every day. I hit my 600th on a Sunday. Had a flight back to Cincinnati that night, got in at 3:30 a.m. And it was back to work on Monday.”
Ken Griffey Jr. is everything baseball players should be. Yeah he was injury-prone, but he was often injured playing the game hard. He played the game the right way and is one of the classiest ballplayers of this, or any other generation. Too bad he couldn’t ever stay healthy, because he would have been baseball’s superhero to Barry Bonds villain. Or maybe Griffey is still our superhero.
