Goodbye, Kid: Ken Griffey Jr. Announces Retirement

Without any fanfare, without a massive press conference, and without even so much as a waive goodbye, one of the greatest players ever to don a major league uniform called it a career.

Griffey is calling it a career.

75 years to the day that Babe Ruth announced his retirement, Seattle Mariners’ OF Ken Griffey Jr. announced his retirement yesterday in a statement read by manager Don Wakamatsu.

“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 the 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,” he said.

Griffey was hitting just .184 this season, but will go down as one of the greatest players to ever play.

In 22 seasons, Griffey hit 630 home runs (fifth all time) with a .284 average and a .370 OBP. He was a 13 time All Star and the AL MVP in 1997.

If Griffey’s career wasn’t ravaged by injuries when he was with the Cincinnati Reds, he would have had 3,000 hits and 700 home runs. Only Hank Aaron accomplished that feat in baseball history.

I am not going to go into Griffey’s entire career season by season.

However, I did want to talk about what I remember Griffey for. I remember Griffey for his slide into home in Game Five of the 1995 ALDS against the New York Yankees.

To quote Al Michaels, “That was when sound had feeling.” That is when you could feel the Kingdome through the TV. That was just pure awesomeness.

Griffey was a monster that series and that slide into home was the culmination of his entire series. Griffey had five home runs in five games and a 1.488 OPS.

Game Five of the ALDS was the game that saved baseball in Seattle and Griffey was a huge part of that. Sadly, who knew that slide in 1995 would be the highlight of Griffey’s career.

Griffey’s next stop will be Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame.

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