In praise of Junior Griffey
as B. Bonds slogs on toward the homerun championship of the world, more burden than joy, it's time to remember that J. Griffey has 569 all-natural dingers. He tied lying cheat R. Palmeiro Thursday and is 14 behind mumbling cheat M. McGwire. He'll never catch Bonds, obviously, but he can look his loved ones in the eye and be admired. You want a role model for your kid? There you go.
posted by Paul Daugherty at 1:24 PM
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Post a Comment*I wholeheartedly agree that Griff is clean, but how will we ever know? That's one of the travesties of the steroid era - clean, legit, great players will be impugned as well as the cheating ones. I'm sure there are many that believe Griffey may well have roided in his day.
I agree of your praise of Ken Griffey Junior and how it's done it clean. A minor complaint though, and George Grande is a co-conspirator of yours, his name isn't Junior Griffey, it's Ken Griffey Junior. The Junior Griffey thing drives me nuts. But nonetheless, nice job on Sportstalk.
hey 2:35... it's a legit point you raise... all I can do is what most laymen do: look at the body type and how it changes (or doesnt)... and notice any glaring jump in stats... a few were obvious..mcgwire's body, canseco's, brady anderson's #s, bret boone etc... none was found guilty of anything, but...griffey has looked about the same forever, a little chunkier now, but it ain't muscle... and his #s were consistent, when he was in his prime
Not to nit-pick, but his name's not really Ken Griffey, Jr., anyway, because his middle name's different than his dads'. "Junior"'s just a nickname, before - or after - the Griffey...
Whatever his name is though, it's nice to see him healthy, and on his current tear...
I agree with anon 2:35 that you (and most) are taking a leap of faith when claiming that Griffey is and always has been clean. Hope it's true. But until it's proven, we'll never know for sure and should all hold at least a small amount of doubt in our minds.
Paul,
I couldn't agree with you more. Griffey gets more undeserved heat from the Cincy fans. Hopefully you and Trent can write some great articles about Griffey when you aren't telling the great story of Josh Hamilton and maybe change some attitudes about the superstars on the Reds teams.
Also, you are doing much better on WLW now than you did when you started. Still think you need to be a bit more controversial at times but you are becoming much more entertaining. I know you said that you don't want to call your listeners idiots or morons but as someone who used to work in radio, sometimes that shoe fits (like the guy that said Freel was fueld by Jack Daniels). Keep up the good work, between you, Furman, Lance, and others Cincy has a very good sports talk market.
Right on about Griffey. This town is far too harsh on this kid. He's a little sensitive (everyone is) and has been injury prone. But, this town loves guys like Ryan Freel (or even Tracy Jones) who "get their uniform dirty", but play reckless, injury-intensive baseball. (and Freel has 2 alcohol related contacts with the law). Hmmm, why is it that this German Catholic conservative town is so down on Griffey but love Freel or Jones? Could it be, maybe, because he has black skin and makes gazillions of dollars. Don't be afraid to face the truth Doc. It's right there.
While I'm venting, let me say this about Reds ownership/management. We're in the worst downward spiral of the season right now. BRING UP HOMER BAILEY!! What the hell is this team waiting for? Is he going to help us on a pennant drive? Is he gonna help us win the Series next year? FORGET ALL THAT. He's got a 1.85 ERA in AAA. BRING HIM UP. Put Milton in middle-relief where he can do less damage and make this kid a catalyst for some wins!
Narron is not the answer as manager of this Club. Managing is not about the double-switch, strategy, or fundamentals. It's about psychology. This guy doesn't have a clue. The more he says "play it right" the more his teams "play it wrong." He isn't a clubhouse leader and doesn't possess a winning attitude. Narron should be fired now.
Did anyone think this team would be in the top 5-6 teams in starting pitching and still be in the basement of the NL central? Well, they play poor defense and have no team speed.
Keep talking on WLW Doc. You're doing well. As a compliment, you are TOO SMART for talk radio.
Hey anonymous 7:26,
You need to relax a little. While I agree in your statement that this town is far too harsh and places far too much pressure on Griff, I also agree that Cincy takes great affection to those all-out players. However, I completely disagree with many of your comments.
I see no reason at this point to throw the blame on Mr. Narron. Sure, the manager is to fill out the lineup card and play Dr. Phil, you cannot blame him for the way this team has performed. It is up to the team to play up to their potential, not the clubhouse staff's. If Ryan Freel turned his uniform brown going after a groundball without coming up with it, and Bernie Stowe was unable to get his uni clean, would you want Stowe strung up?
You also need to relax on the Homer Bailey issue. Example: Bobby Livingston, who the Reds finally brought up, was the top contendor coming out spring training for the final spot in the rotation. Matt Belisle was given the job because the Reds felt he is farther along in his development. Keep in mind that Bailey is only 21 and this is his first season in AAA. My thoughts are there needs to be proof that he can keep his AAA success up over the long haul just to show he can handle an entire season, or at least the majority of one. Livingston is left-handed, therefore making him a better candidate to replace the left-handed Milton. The Reds are taking a risk as well with Livingston, who has just one previous year of MLB experience. We'll see if that pays off.
I am done now. Doc, and anyone else, feel free to comment on my thoughts.
Don't get me wrong--I like Ken Griffey Jr.. I liked his dad when he played for the "machine". But baseball has changed dramatically in that period. Baseball is no longer about who has the best scouts and the best farm club and the most prospects...
It's about which club has the most money---The New York Yankees, Atlanta Braves, and Florida Marlins proved that through the 80's and 90's.
The Reds don't have that kind of cash.
Don't know if they ever will...
Griffey Jr. is TOO EXPENSIVE for this team. The Reds are at their best when they have a bunch of "no-names" fresh off the farm, or guys trying to re-kindle their careers. Not expensive superstars.
If Griffey were dealt to the AL as a DH, maybe the bullpen problems could be fixed...Maybe we could get 2 more decent starters and do something novel in MLB these days--go with a couple of more starters in the rotation and tell the PATHETIC bullpen to go sell hamburgers (and use their salary to pick up ANOTHER decent starter).
The Reds need to realize they are in a small market and they should use their resources wisely. IMO, Griffey was a foolish investment for the Reds from the start...the Reds had more playoff appearances BEFORE he joined the team than after.
I'm not saying he's past his prime...I'm saying we don't have the long green needed to keep him in Cincinnati AND field a competitive team (even WITH his paycut!).
So, unless the Reds have some master plan to match the Yankees, or the Red Sox, or any number of deep-pocketed teams with money we are unaware of....
PLEASE TRADE GRIFFEY AND GET SOME PITCHING!
Just Sayin'!
Griffeys not too expensive, the Reds just can't afford (defensively) to have 2 guys playing the outfield who would be better being DHs than outfielders.
Regarding Bonds,
A cheat is a cheat is a cheat.
Anon 7:26:
"Hmmm, why is it that this German Catholic conservative town is so down on Griffey but love Freel or Jones?"
You left out an important description of Cincinnati, "blue-collar." That is why fans like Freel so much. I love Griff and think he has been treated horribly, but he cannot be described as blue-collar (though he is certainly professional!).
just because his body type does not mean that he didnt juice. i'm not saying he did juice but a change in body type does not gaurantee anything. not all roids bulk you up, just look at palmeiro, he was relatively lean and never really had a huge spike in numbers. until the day he tested positive people were saying that there was no way he was on the juice, just like griffey.
7:26 said...
Could it be, maybe, because he has black skin and makes gazillions of dollars.
No
"could it be because Griffey Jr. is black"? NO? Ask that same question to Eric davis, barry larkin, Eric davis, Mike cameron and Frank Robinson. No, it couldnt possibly be because they are black. oh by the way, none of the previous names have ever been ARRESTED or kicked out of baseball for doing drugs like Josh hamilton or Ryan Freel. P.s. tracey jones is and was a HACK with "good old boys" cred.
FYI to all posters. If your post goes longer than 5 lines, most people get bored and quit reading what you, the author thinks are great points. Just like talking to Doc on his radio show, GET TO THE POINT!
McGwire et al. didn't "cheat." Baseball had no rules against steroids until recently. How are you a cheater is you didn't break a rule?
Griffeys not too expensive, the Reds just can't afford (defensively) to have 2 guys playing the outfield who would be better being DHs than outfielders.
Umm... is that why the bullpen is DEAD LAST in ERA in the NL? I would think that with the cash trading Griffey would free up, we could find at least 2 decent closers so that we don't have to call it a day the second the bullpen comes in to pitch!
TRADE GRIFFEY FOR PITCHING NOW!!!
Just Sayin'!
great, they technically didn't cheat if you split hairs, they only broke the law. what were we thinking?
Griffey is and has been clean. Throughout his career Ken Griffey Jr. has suffered injuries because he extended himself to make what many regard as impossible catches or plays.
Griffey unfortunately is suffering the same fate as Dave Parker did in Pittsburgh when he signed a "million dollar contract." Dave was the target of batteries thrown from the stands at Three Rivers Stadium and this was before his "substance" problem was made known.
Since hhe came back home, Ken Griffey Jr. has been unjustly villified. It's a sad commmentary on the attitudes of some in this city.
George F. Will on Drugs and Sports
By George F. Will
Newsweek
May 21, 2007 issue - Would that Barry Bonds had retired after the 1998 season. He might be happier than he seems to be in his long trudge toward tainted glory. Certainly everyone who cares about baseball, and about the integrity of athletic competition generally, would be spared the disturbing spectacle of his unlovely approach to Henry Aaron's career record of 755 home runs.
The numbers Bonds had put up before the 1999 season were luminous enough to have guaranteed him first-ballot election to the Hall of Fame. He had 411 home runs, 445 stolen bases—he is now the only "500-500" player in history—eight All-Star selections and eight Gold Glove awards. He had won three MVP awards and should have won a fourth that was given to a lesser, but less obnoxious, player.
Since 1998, his gaudy numbers have earned him four more MVP awards. From his 1986 rookie season through 1998, he averaged a home run every 16.1 at-bats (Babe Ruth averaged one every 11.8 at-bats), and his season high was 46. Since 1999, when he turned 35, an age by which most players are past their peak production, he has averaged one every 8.9 at-bats, and in the 2001 season he hit 73. If Bonds, even as he aged, had continued to average one home run every 16.1 at-bats, he would have entered this season at age 42 with 590 home runs, not 734, and Aaron's record would have been beyond his reach.
Equally startling are these numbers: According to Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, the San Francisco Chronicle reporters who wrote "Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal That Rocked Professional Sports," Mike Murphy, equipment manager of the San Francisco Giants, testified that since Bonds became a Giant in 1993, the size of his uniform jersey has gone from 42 to 52. His cap size has expanded from 7 1/8 to 7 1/4, even though while it was expanding he shaved his head. (Bonds reportedly shaved his head because his hair was falling out as a result of steroid use.) And Fainaru-Wada and Williams also say Murphy testified that Bonds's baseball shoe size has changed from 10½ to 13.
Steroids, human growth hormone (HGH) and other performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) can cause gradual enlargement of bones in the feet, hands, face, jaw and skull. Bonds has never failed a steroid test, but there is no reliable test for HGH, and chemists concocting PEDs also devise masking ingredients to defeat tests.
Various PEDs can increase muscle mass (and the speed of hitters' bats and pitchers' arms). They can hasten recovery from the exertions of training or competing, and can reduce pain and increase the sort of concentration needed when a 96-mile-per-hour fastball is coming at you during a day game after a night game. George Vecsey, in his short new history of baseball, quotes a player: "The funniest thing I ever saw in baseball was Pete Rose's greenies kicking in during a rain delay." Greenies—amphetamines, a booster fuel for a 162-game season that is played across four time zones—were for years as openly available as sunflower seeds in teams' clubhouses.
The fascinating history of PEDs runs back into history's mists, to potions concocted to increase soldiers' aggressiveness in battle. This history is recounted in Will Carroll's "The Juice: The Real Story of Baseball's Drug Problems," an indispensable guide to today's controversies.
In 1898, a Welsh cyclist in a Paris-to-Bordeaux race died after drinking an alcohol-based product designed to increase stamina and control pain. In 1921, a University of Chicago chemist ground up tons of bulls' testicles and used chemicals to isolate testosterone. By 1932, Carroll writes, sprinters were experimenting with nitroglycerine to dilate their coronary arteries. In 1936, at the Berlin Olympics, injectable testosterone, developed the year before by Nazi doctors for military use, probably helped propel German athletes to 89 medals, more than any other team. In 1945, some German scientists involved in synthesizing testosterone moved to the Soviet Union, which soon became dominant in weight lifting. At the 1976 Montreal Olympics, large East German women with deep voices, body hair on their torsos and severe acne won 11 of 13 possible gold medals in swimming.
Now the caffeine in your coffee is a PED. Some major-league ballparks feature advertisements for another widely used PED—Viagra. Testosterone and HGH, which the body produces naturally, are components of some potent PEDs. Distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate enhancements, in the context of competition, is not always easy. One should begin by understanding the temptation.
Although dangerous, steroids and other PEDs can tempt two kinds of ballplayers. One is the superior athlete for whom mere superiority is insufficient when immortality might be injected from a syringe. The other is the marginal player, a category that includes most major leaguers at some point in their careers, and many throughout their careers. If such a player knows or suspects that competitors for his roster spot or playing time are getting illegal and hazardous chemical assistance, he must choose between jeopardizing his career or his health.
Aside from certain grossly anomalous achievements by a few individuals such as Bonds, it is difficult to measure the extent to which PEDs have distorted baseball. Carroll stresses that their increased use has coincided with other changes that have tended to increase offensive production. The changes have included more sophisticated strength training unrelated to ingested or injected substances; 16 new, mostly hitter-friendly ballparks; contraction of the strike zone; expansion of the number of teams, which diluted the quality of pitching; and maple bats that are more durable than those made from ash and so can have thinner barrels that increase bat speed.
And PEDs are, of course, not a problem only in baseball. Track—it was a track coach who blew open the BALCO lab scandal that brought Bonds before a grand jury—might be the sport most distorted by PEDs. And it requires the willful suspension of disbelief to think that diet and strength training are the only reasons why the average NFL offensive lineman weighs 307 pounds. But baseball is held to higher standards, for several reasons.
One is that baseball, unlike football, has a statistical measure of players' strength—the home run. For 34 years, 60 homers was the season record. Then for 37 years the record was 61. Then in four seasons, 1998 to 2001, that total was surpassed six times. In football, Carroll writes, "the players most likely to use steroids are offensive and defensive linemen. If these players get stronger via steroids, their gains in strength will merely cancel each other out, and there will be no noticeable difference in the statistics." Furthermore, Carroll says, football's premier players—quarterbacks—achieve greatness by recognizing defenses and throwing accurately, not by the strength that steroids can augment.
Another reason baseball is held to higher standards than are other sports is that fans relate to baseball players differently. This is partly because, as Bill Veeck said, players do not need to be seven feet tall or seven feet wide. Players are generally much bigger than they used to be: Mickey Mantle (5 feet 11½, 195 pounds) was smaller than most of today's middle infielders. But last year's World Series MVP, the Cardinals' David Eckstein, is 5 feet 7 and 165 pounds.
Also, Tim Marchman, who writes about baseball for The New York Sun, notes that last year Shawne Merriman, linebacker for the San Diego Chargers, was suspended for four games for steroid use—then was selected for the Pro Bowl. And few cared. Marchman detects a "soft bigotry of low expectations": Most NFL and NBA players are black; most of the paying customers are white and, Marchman argues, do not expect better behavior. Baseball, however, is, Marchman says, "culturally white and middle class" and its players "are more widely expected to conform to ethical norms."
Perhaps. Certainly those norms are under pharmacological attack, and the attack will be a protracted contest between the chemists who devise PEDs and the testers who try to detect the use of the substances. In any case, the norms need to be explained and affirmed, as follows.
Drugs enhance performance by devaluing it when they unfairly alter the conditions of competition. Lifting weights and eating spinach enhance the body's normal functioning; many chemical intrusions into the body can jeopardize the health of the body and mind, while causing both to behave abnormally.
Athletes who are chemically propelled to victory do not merely overvalue winning, they misunderstand why winning is properly valued. Professional athletes stand at an apex of achievement, but their achievements are admirable primarily because they are the products of a lonely submission to a sustained discipline of exertion. Such submission is a manifestation of good character. The athlete's proper goal is to perform unusually well, not unnaturally well. Drugs that make sport exotic, by radical intrusions into the body, drain sport of its exemplary power by making it a display of chemistry rather than character. In fact, it becomes a display of some chemists' virtuosity and some athletes' bad character.
Sport is play, but play has a serious side. It can elevate both competitors and spectators. But cold, covert attempts to alter unfairly the conditions of competition subvert the essence of sport, which is the principle that participants shall compete under identical rules and conditions.
Harvey Mansfield, a Harvard philosopher, says we need our athletes and their integrity because excellence is always endangered in democracies that often cherish equality indiscriminately. PEDs, he says, do not merely expand the limits of human nature, they erase those limits as a standard: "Perfection disappears as the upper limit, and is replaced by an indefinite, indefinable perfectibility."
Mansfield's colleague Michael Sandel, in his new book, "The Case Against Perfection," acknowledges that "the line between cultivating natural gifts and corrupting them with artifice may not always be clear." In 1999, Tiger Woods, whose eyesight was so poor he could not read the large E on the eye chart, had Lasik eye surgery—then won his next five tournaments. This was not a corrupting artifice. It enabled his eyes to do what normal eyes naturally do, not what unnatural eyes would do. But, Sandel says, when the role of chemical enhancement increases, our admiration for the achievement decreases. An athlete who succumbs to the "Promethean aspiration to remake nature, including human nature" ceases to be the agent of his achievements, which are drained of merit and moral responsibility.
It is a truism that baseball involves a lot of failure. Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times—that is the equivalent of three seasons of at-bats without ever putting the ball in play. Ty Cobb, whose .366 career batting average is the highest in history, failed more than 63 percent of the time. In a sense, most Americans are failed ballplayers. That is one reason for the sport's unique grip on the nation's imagination and affections.
PEDs make baseball less of a shared activity. Because of them, a few excel but everyone loses—everyone in the stands and on the field, and Bonds more than anyone.
OK, I love Griffey, but his big hamstring injury came while rounding 3rd, not while trying to jump over the wall to rob a HR. He's had some freak injuries and he has gotten hurt trying to make great plays (I remember he hurt his arm or his shoulder on a diving catch and he dislocated his toe climbing the wall), but they haven't ALL been because he was trying to be superhuman.
And steroids have been against the rules in baseball for quite sometime, certainly before McGwire and Bonds and the like started using. They just weren't tested for, partially because the players union thought it intrusive and partially because the league and the owners wanted HRs to bring fans in. But to say it wasn't against the rules is unequivocally wrong.
Griffey's numbers did indeed spike just like all of baseball in the mid to late 1990's, like the year he hit 57. Everyone points to players being juiced but seeing the rise of the homer numbers across the board shows that the ball might have been more juiced than some players. If Griffey was/is clean, explain his spike in homers in the late 90's. Just for the record, I think Griffey was/is clean.
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