‘Junior’

In an expected and classy move the Seattle Mariners decided to honor Ken Griffey Jr. with his own bobble head the same day his number was retired in the Mariners Hall of Fame. Although I wasn’t alive for most of his first Mariners stint, I remember him quite frequently from the days he played with the Cincinnati Reds. As you may or may not know I am a St. Louis Cardinals fan through and through but every time Junior was up to bat I was always rooting for him. In a era filled with players taking steroids and PED’s he remained clean, a true role model. The same era had 11 out of the 31 players (35%) that were featured in Backyard Baseball 2000 used PED’s/Steroids at some point in their career. To some people this might not mean a lot and seem ridiculous that I even included it but I think it’s necessary. For young kids, like I was, that played the game I looked up to most if not all the MLB players in the game. They were the fan favorites, all-stars, superstars, and 35% of them were cheaters. Those cheaters were players that people, young kids became attached to, loved, looked up to, praised only to be devastated to find out that they cheated. They ruined the game. Griffey helped to preserve it. Griffey is 6th all time in home runs without steroids and it might have even been more. Griffey innovated the game with his backwards cap, shoes, and promotional idea. This bobblehead cannot even start to say how awesome a player Griffey was, how amazing his swing was, how he is a great individual. I will always respect him as a person and as a player. He is the reason baseball is GREAT. Yes I do also own a pair of his shoes.