Thanks Junior

On a crazy Wednesday night of sports, one of the best players in baseball retired from the Major Leagues and rides off into the sunset. That man is Ken Griffey Jr.  He is probably one of the best cases in baseball of asking ourselves "what if?" because his career obviously was hindered by all of the injuries throughout the years. 

I am glad that he finished his career with the Seattle Mariners and not the New York Yankees or the Los Angeles Dodgers. He did it the way that everyone envisions their personal hero to end their career, I mean in the perfect world for me, Brett Favre would have retired on March 4th.  The Ken Griffey Jr. everyone has etched in their minds is the guy who made spectacular catches at the Kingdome plus his monster home runs to all fields with his perfect swing.  Other than the Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball game for SNES I played religiously, my childhood memories bring me back to his backwards hat.

It might sound funny to you, but as a kid, I always remember him in the backwards hat and found it to be the coolest thing (same goes for Deion Sanders and his bandannas). I thought that Griffey obviously was cooler than the other guys who wore their hats the right way and why couldn't he wear like that the whole the game. If you were a kid growing up in the mid to late 90s you wanted to be Griffey Jr.

Granted, a few impact players of the 90s are still playing but most of the guys I grew up and whose baseball cards I have are long gone from the game.  Griffey Jr. was one of the remaining hold outs from that group and I believe he will remembered highly as the years go on because when people look back at the steroid era, they will look for the best player who did the right way... Ken Griffey Jr.

-Charlie.