By Trevor:
As a young pup (born in ’88) I got to grow up watching Ken Griffey Jr. play for the Mariners. He was drafted a year before I was born and broke into the Majors when I was 1 years old. I obviously don’t remember watching him play for my first 5 years of life. But growing up in the North West I was a die-hard Mariner’s fan. When I started playing little league baseball, that’s what got my family into baseball, and from then on it was all about the Mariners.
Truth be told, Griffey has always been my favorite baseball player. When I was a kid, the reasons I loved him were that he was just so good! He hit a lot of homeruns and was an amazing center fielder. But it just always looked like he enjoyed playing the game.
When we were all kids we all enjoyed the game so much! We went out and played it because it was fun. We all went out there to chew double bubble and David’s sunflower seeds. We loved to just run around and play the game. And here is one of the best players in the game of baseball, and he is playing the game like I did every day.
Griffey was so much more than a baseball player to me. He was a role model. A role model of how to live life and how to play the game. Looking back on my career from high school through college, I wish I would have had more fun playing the game. I wish I would have focused more on the fact that I got to play a game for fun every day. It is always a challenge, the longer you play the game, to remember that it’s a fun game. We forget that grown men play a child’s game for a living. But Griffey was one who just played the game and had fun.
The older I’ve gotten, the more I appreciate his game. He was a consistent player who played at a high level for most of his career. He threw his body on the line so many times and got up and shook it off. He kept playing regardless of how beat up he was. Griffey was the reason I liked the Mariners in the first place. Then of course we were all bummed when he went to the Reds. But I can’t say that I didn’t love watching the Reds play when Griffey was hitting 3rd for them. But Griffey was a “dirt-dog.” He was the “kid” due to the way he played the game. I’ve always loved that about him.
I grew up wanting to be Ken Griffey Jr. He is the reason why I wanted to be left handed since I was a kid. That bat cock he did when he stepped into the box, the trot to first base after he launched a ball into the right field bleachers, I wanted what he had. He had a swagger that was earned and desired by many. He was literally able to do anything he wanted on the baseball field at any time. Ken Griffey Jr. is the reason I love baseball. He is and always will be my favorite baseball player of all-time.