Arguably one of the greatest players of all time has retired after 22 seasons. He is 5th on the all time HR list with 630. And he was widely acknowledged as a great defensive center fielder during his prime. Should be a first ballot hall of famer. I'm not sure how you don't vote for the guy. 370 OBP, 538 SLG, 907 OPS and 1836 RBIs which is 14th all time. I'm a Braves fan but Jr is my favorite player. He had such a pretty swing and was fun to watch. Thanks for the memories.
Wish his exit from the game was better then it was, wished he retired last year, but the guy loved baseball, and the great player i ever seen personally, has left the game. HOF for sure, and the greatest player i had the honor to watch.
Ah, I recall a fuzzy cheeked 19 yr old rookie playing with his Father on the Mariners (Ken Griffey Sr. was one of my favorite players on the 80's yankees) and he was known as "The kid". While not my favorite player, he was incredible to watch play as he could make a play that looked impossible, and he could do everything from hit for power, or for average, or steal bases, he was one heck of a player.
Griffey was my alltime favorite player growing up. What a beautiful swing he had, to bad the injuries started to pile up or he would go down as the best player ever IMO
Def my favorite player in baseball. You guys said it all already except that he is the last of the previous gen's sluggers that kept it clean and accomplished everything he did without performance enhancing drugs. Amazing.
Likely the greatest HR hitter in the past 35 years, Griffey never took steriods, hell he never even lifted weights...if he had taken HGH he would probobly hit 900 HR's, but Ill take 600 and integrity.
Much love for The Kid, hat on backwards, turtleneck...chilling, jumping over walls to rob homers.....the kid was one of the best athletes around in his prime, and IMO had the sweetest most fluid swing I ever saw...
I'm not a big baseball fan or for that, not really a baseball fan. Jr. always seemed to come across as a class act.
My favorite player. My idol. He got me into baseball. He was my favorite player of all time because of his smile and his glove. His swing and bat were amazing as well. ; ) Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk
I bet a lot of people here who played baseball in their back yard tried to copy Griffeys swing. I remember being in my back yard as a young kid with my cap backwards and bat up high pretending to be Griffey.
Best player I ever watched when he was in his prime. Class act, clean, and a leader if he's not first ballot there's a serious problem with the voters. Only injuries robbed him from being the all time home run leader.
Best player of the steroid era, he was clean and still near the top every year with players that obviously weren't clean after retrospection. Griffey was a complete player, had speed, power played great defense, if he hadn't gotten hurt he would have had even more impressive numbers. Guy threw himself into walls to make plays, played the game the right way, anyone who has a vote and doesn't give him a 1st ballot vote should have their voting rights removed immediately.
Heard Mike Wilbon talk about how Jr told him that the way he played defense was just as important as his offense. He said that preventing a run was just as important as scoring a run. Said he wouldn't stop running into walls because of that.
Most naturally gifted baseball player I ever saw..... like some have said, if not for injuries he would practically own the record books. He made climbing the wall and robbing a home run look like child's play.....and for him, it was
The most beautiful natural swing I've ever seen, Jr. made hitting a HR look like childs play, its to bad the injurys robbed him of the numbers he could have posted. As others have said here, pure class and he played the game the way it should be played, CLEAN!
