Posted on 06/25/2020 5:12:42 PM PDT by Simon Foxx
Many baseball players have a strong desire to play for the Yankees during their MLB careers. It's one of the most iconic franchises in sports, and they've rarely missed the playoffs since the mid-1990s. However, superstar Ken Griffey Jr. never had a desire to play for the Yankees -- even though his dad played for them. In the new MLB Network documentary "Junior," the Mariners legend explains why.
It all stems from an experience Griffey Jr. had while visiting his father, Ken Griffey Sr., in the early 1980s. Griffey Jr., just a kid at the time, was asked to leave the team dugout before a game.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbssports.com ...
And the Yankees and Alex got the ring while all Junior has is his whiny story.
Boohoo.
Funny stuff. Some grudges just don’t go away.
Anyway ... why my first comment was deleted I have no idea - defeats the purpose of posting the article. I used **** to modify the salty language, and it was done in an obviously joking way for FUN (Mod? Are you listening?)
Sheesh. Anyway the point I was making is that instead of turning the other cheek, Jr returned the Yankee rudeness with an angry attitude, which was understandable, but shortsighted - because if he HAD signed with NY in the 1990s he would have had 4-5 rings. Instead he never even played in one World Series.
Yes, we did indeed. I still think NY would have won a couple more WS instead of just in 2009 if they had NOT signed A-Rod.
Steroid cases.
I have a friend who once took his 12 year old son to a Yankees game after the son had been requesting same for a long time. As they were leaving, the son remarked “Hey Dad, those people are all assholes!”
He immediately changed to the Mets - all your championships didn’t count with him or with lots of people.
Steinbrenner is the one who started the death of baseball by refusing to abide by an accepted, but unwritten, salary structure.
That horse left the barn by the time George - who saved the NY Yankee franchise - ever got to the Bronx. He grasped what could be done before others did and won a couple of championships in the 1970s. Big fatdeal. Then he screwed up the Yankees so bad that from 1981 - 1996 they didn't make a single World Series.
"Unwritten salary structure" - yeah - how well did that work out for baseball when Peter Ueberroth got the owners to implement it in the 1980s? Not too well.
I will give you one thing - your son was probably right about the rowdies in the stands. Been there, seen 'em myself. (Of course, the tickets are so expensive now that I'm not sure that bunch can afford to get in anymore). First NY game I went to was against Boston in 1977 - when the Yankees got way behind, fights started breaking out in the stands. I think they have that stuff under control these days, though. That was a different era.
You seem to know your Yankees baseball - I’ll give you that, but another thing I don’t like about Yankee fans is that they are Yankees fans not baseball fans. I will watch and enjoy a game between the Angels and the Mariners and be happy. Too many Yankees fans will only watch if the Yankees are playing.
*LOL* - You are right that I will only watch the Yankees, and only during the playoffs - but that is simply a concession to the busy life I lead - I have ZERO time (or desire) to watch television anymore. I found that as I have gotten older my mind has become more and more focused on the things I want to accomplish in my art, my hobbies and my business - to the exclusion of the more frivolous pursuits of youth. Because one is more and more aware of the limits of time as the decades pass.
However, when I was younger, and had more time to spend (or “waste”, if I am using my current perspective), I would watch any baseball game, anytime. My favorite baseball memories are of the games I attended at Wrigley Field during the years I attended school in Chicago in the mid-1980s. It is simply the best ballpark I have been to for watching a game - not a bad seat in the house.
I would often sit in the bleachers a couple of rows behind Bill Veck, who spent his twilight years attending Cubs games and chatting with the fans. Should have worked up the courage to engage him in conversation. Boy he lived through baseball’s “Golden Age”. And he was quite a character.
Memory is a tricky thing - its true that the Messersmith case created modern free agency - but that was a couple of years after Steinbrenner bought the Yankees, not before.
Nice chatting with you.
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