Two Guys Sports
Bruce BostwickKen Griffey Jr Hits Home Run # 600
June 10th 2008 06:24
Ken Griffey, Jr.'s 1989 Upper Deck Rookie card which was for a time the hottest card in collecting. Image courtesy of The Upper Deck Company, and my personal card collection.
7,000!
Exactly 7,000.
You are wondering what 7,000 has to do with the title of this article, aren’t you? Well, Ken Griffey, Jr. hit his first Major League home run off of Eric King in a game between the Seattle Mariners and Chicago White Sox at the Kingdome way back on April 10, 1989. Fast forward precisely 7,000 days and you arrive on Monday June 9th, 2008. The scene is Dolphin Stadium in Miami, Florida, the first inning of a scoreless game between the Florida Marlins and Cincinnati Reds. Mark Hendrickson was on the mound for Florida and Jerry Hairston was on third, and there was one out. Griffey ran the count to 3-1, and should have gotten a pitch to hit. He certainly did, and he drove it 413 feet. It was his 600th career home run.
Everyone expected him to hit 600 in his career, most even felt he would be the new Home Run King of baseball by the time he was done. No one expected it to take 7,000 days for him to reach 600. By now he should have, and would have been sitting in the spot currently occupied by another second generation star, Barry Bonds. Along the way though he suffered a torn hamstring, torn patella tendon, a separated shoulder, and a torn ankle, just to mention the major ones. These obviously slowed him down considerably. We will never know just how many he’s have at this point if he had stayed healthy. It really is a shame. However, if he manages to stay healthy, and maybe even made a move back to the American League where he could be a designated hitter, he could still break 700. It would be a stretch to say he could surpass Bonds at 762 though.
His dad only hit 152 home runs in his career, and never had more than 21 in a single season. He never wanted to be a home run hitter, he just wanted to be like his dad. Junior’s god-given ability and his sweet swing is what made him a great home run hitter. His dad did hit at least one home run which will most-likely always be listed in the record books however. That home run came on September 14, 1990 off of California Angels pitcher Kirk McCaskill. It came at a time when Senior and Junior were both playing for the Mariners, on this night Jr. just happened to be batting behind his father in the lineup. That day the planets aligned and Junior would hit his 36th career home run right after his dad had hit one. They are now, and quite possibly will be forever, the only father – son combo to hit back-to-back home runs. Junior could have finished with under 200 home runs too, and probably still would have been happy to have followed his dad’s HR with one of his own. While still speaking of his dad, he only played for two other teams besides the Reds and Mariners in his career, those two teams were the Yankees and Braves. I personally would love to see him get sent to New York to roam the same storied outfield in the Bronx that his dad once patrolled.
Junior was the youngest player to reach 400 home runs. Babe Ruth remains the youngest to reach 600 though, he was just 36 when he got there. Griffey is 38, the same age that Bonds and Sammy Sosa were when they hit the milestone. He is just the sixth player in history to reach 600, joining Bonds, Hank Aaron, Ruth, Willie Mays, and Sosa.
One thing that should be pointed out, in this day of every third or fourth player in the league being accused or suspected of using some form of performance enhancing, whether it be Bonds and The Clear, or Sosa and his corked bat that he “accidentally” used, Griffey has never once even been considered to be in that group. Everyone is, and in my opinion should be, certain that Griffey’s success is all-natural and pure talent. I would love to see him somehow stick around and stay healthy as a DH long enough to hit another 163 home runs. It isn’t likely as even if he hit 30 a year that would be this season, and a little over four more, and while playing till 42-43 isn’t impossible, it just doesn’t look too probable.
Congratulations to one of the best players in baseball history.
We are including links to him hitting the 600th home run, and his comments after the game, courtesy of ESPN.
Click here to see video of Ken Griffey, Jr. hitting his 600th career home run.
Here is video of Griffey’s comments after the game.
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