Joel F

Ken Griffey Jr. hits 600th home run

It took me a while, but I finally figured out what I want to do with this web space. The multi-annual friendly updates and self-motivational posts normally found on here have been great, but I don't use it enough, and emo venting is not very cool, so instead of using wandyteeth as an open life-book similar to those found on facebook and myspace, I think I want to use it for something else. And then it hit me. I have always wanted my own sports blog. I am a diehard ESPN junkie. Huge sports fanatic. To quote Tim Kalishaw from Around the Horn yesterday, "Bring me the constant: variety in sports." I need to be writing about something and it just so happens I am really into sporting news. I listen to an average of ten ESPN podcasts a week, I have read and listened to everything the Sports Guy has produced in the last six months, and I am of the opinion that Sportscenter is the best television program of all time. Come on, it's really funny and entertaining, it shows the top 10 best plays of the day, and it's brand new every night. Also, as I learned in the baseball class I took last semester, the sole determining factor in the history of sports is the power of the imagination. And not just the power of one person's imagination, but the collective imagination of entire cities, enormous countries, and sometimes, the whole world.

My first post will be a baseball bit about something that happened yesterday to the man who has the sweetest swing anyone has ever seen. Ken Griffey Jr. hit his 600th career homerun to become the sixth figure in history to accomplish that feat, and only the fourth power hitter to get there without using steroids. He is currently 38 years old, but everyone remembers him as the unbelievably talented kid who came into the league twenty years ago. Junior embodied the perfection of the sport while wearing those cool green and white Mariner uniforms and playing in the Sky Dome in Seattle during the 1990s. If you remember, in the movie Little Big League, as the dorky teenage manager of the Twins' dream of victory was about to be realized, Griffey came out of nowhere and leaped over the outfield wall, slayed the hopes of the audience, and stole what would have been a game winner. The most dominant stretch of his career came during his last four years in Seattle, 1996-1999, when he hit 209 homeruns and drove in 567 runs. His love of the game is obvious in his highlight reel, which I think is best described as joyful baseball.

I have a personal connection to Junior in that he dawns the cover of my most valuable baseball card. My cousin got it in a pack at least 10 years ago and I traded him for two or three quality cards. It was once listed as valued at $50, though I just found out today you can buy one on ebay for $1. I'm still going to hold onto it though, because he continues to knock 'em out, and his legacy is still growing.

1995 Pinnacle KEN GRIFFEY JR. # 128 Yum Bubble Gum