It’s the end of an era in the MLB. Ken Griffey Jr. has retired from baseball.

Griffey, aka The Kid, aka Junior, aka my favorite player growing up, is leaving the Seattle Mariners and baseball in the middle of the season. Before Wednesday’s game against the Twins in Seattle, the 40-year-old informed the team that his career was over.

Griffey felt he was not helping the team anymore and he didn’t want his frustrations with his lack of production and his pending retirement after the season to distract the team in any way.

“While I feel I am still able to make a contribution on the field and nobody in the Mariners front office has asked me to retire, I told the Mariners when I met with them prior to the 2009 season and was invited back that I will never allow myself to become a distraction. Griffey said in a statement. I feel that without enough occasional starts to be sharper coming off the bench, my continued presence as a player would be an unfair distraction to my teammates and their success as a team is what the ultimate goal should be.”

Since he has been stuck in a backup designated hitter role, Griffey wanted to leave on his own terms. He played more than 21 seasons and had 13 All-Star appearances. He was the 1997 AL MVP with the Mariners and made a return to Seattle in 2009. He never wanted that to interfere with goal of winning a championship, which he never was able to do.

In the 1990s, no one was better. Griffey was hands down the player of the decade while playing for the Mariners, which led to him becoming a hero to kids just starting to follow baseball. I am an exact example of this. I became a baseball fan and just as much a Ken Griffey Jr. fan in 1995. That Seattle team was so easy to root for based on their fearless leader. He saved baseball in Seattle. This actually brings up even more Griffey followers. Even those who didn’t root for Seattle could not hate Griffey. My buddy Pat is a Yankees fan and he rooted against Griffey in NYC countless times and Griffey broke his heart too; but he couldn’t help but love Griffey, to the point that he became his favorite non-Yankee player in baseball.

He had the sweetest swing in the history of baseball. That doesn’t mean he had the best swing, but he had the prototypical lefty swing. I think every kid my age mimicked Griffey’s lefty swing countless times, even if we were righties! Who could blame us though? That swing created 630 homeruns!

But could it have been more? In a word – YES! Once Griffey went back home to Cincinnati, he got hurt over and over. Those legs were getting older, and they were getting weaker and weaker. But when he was playing, he was still hitting homeruns. I remember in the late 90s it was almost a given that he would break Hank Aaron’s then record of 755 homeruns. If anyone could do it, it was him. Instead, he ends his career fifth on the list.

Turns out there is a bit of irony here. Griffey got hurt often, but he is the one superstar of the 90s/00s that we are 100% sure that he NEVER took any kind of performance enhancing drugs. Look at guys like Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, A-Rod, Manny (etc…..), they took steroids and/or HGH to keep their bodies going. That led to more playing time and more homeruns. If Griffey had done that, he would be at the top – bar none.

But that’s what I love about Griffey. I have never even had a question of this. His body didn’t change as he got older, it just got weaker from injury. Man, do I wish he could have stayed healthy. He could be on top of the all-time homerun list instead of some cheater.

Three images of Ken Griffey Jr. will never leave my head. One is his sweet swing. I mentioned it before and it will never be topped or replaced. Another is he ability to run towards a wall and gracefully snatch it to prevent a homerun. That catch in Detroit at the old Tiger Stadium was iconic. Finally, that view of him under the dogpile after his winning run in the 1995 ALDS with that smile going is perfect. I will miss him in the game and I hope that kids in future generations can always have a Griffey-type player to follow by example.

-Chris

P.S. – I just want to say that this was very hard to write. How can I sum up the career of an icon? I can’t, and I apologize for many other things that I missed. See you in Cooperstown Junior.