SKYWALKER
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loved the KID
NOW MAGIC PAPA SHOW US THE KID
NOW MAGIC PAPA SHOW US THE KID
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Ken Griffey Jr. has retired just now, mid season!
- Thread starter coltsfan23
- Start date
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championMan
Member
- Apr 16, 2009
- 682
- 0
Re: Ken Griffey Jr Retiring
I know. But I want it to be true. Is hard to accept my childhood of watching every player were cheating. Somebody must be doing it the for the love of the game. Even Big Hurt I think is clean.
BunchOBull said:
I know. But I want it to be true. Is hard to accept my childhood of watching every player were cheating. Somebody must be doing it the for the love of the game. Even Big Hurt I think is clean.
prospectorgems said:
I doubt you'll find many...if any other than yourself.
I was there when he returned here as a Red, the ovation was amazing (in fact, someone in the Cincinnati organization said that they'd never seen a reception like that). I was here when he returned last season, the ovation was amazing.
Griffey was and always will be the face of this franchise. I think most fans out here understand why he wanted to leave, and we've all come to accept it and still appreciate what he brought to Seattle for the many, many years he was here.
I tip my cap to him...
BunchOBull
Active member
I agree that Griffey is one of the few greats that was probably clean, I just wanted to add the Big Hurt in that list.
Farwell to Griffey...as a kid I loved pulling his cards because I could always trade them for the Thomas I wanted.
Farwell to Griffey...as a kid I loved pulling his cards because I could always trade them for the Thomas I wanted.
SouthSideSluggers
New member
Re: Ken Griffey Jr Retiring
Frank Thomas was the other....only one to ever want to talk about roids....
championMan said:
Frank Thomas was the other....only one to ever want to talk about roids....
notjomommasclint
Active member
i would like to thank "the kid"
jay1065
New member
Sad day for baseball. Thanks for a great career, Griffey!
hive17
Active member
- Aug 7, 2008
- 21,426
- 24
Wait, are we sure he wasn't just talking in his sleep?
I keed, I keed.
It's sad to see the "old Guard" types retire. Is he the last big guy from the decade of the 1980's to hang them up? I'm not counting Meyers.
I keed, I keed.
It's sad to see the "old Guard" types retire. Is he the last big guy from the decade of the 1980's to hang them up? I'm not counting Meyers.
Super Mario
Well-known member
Major lol at the person so convinced that Thomas was clean his whole career.
I'm not saying he juiced. But if there was ever a PRIME candidate, it's Frank Thomas.
I'm not saying he juiced. But if there was ever a PRIME candidate, it's Frank Thomas.
baseballguy350
New member
magicpapa
Well-known member
- Aug 7, 2008
- 10,386
- 1,958
SKYWALKER said:loved the KID
NOW MAGIC PAPA SHOW US THE KID
SKYWALKER
New member
magicpapa said:SKYWALKER said:loved the KID
NOW MAGIC PAPA SHOW US THE KID
A BIG THANKS
muskiesfan
New member
Mike Schmidt did this too (retired mid season).
A huge thank you to Junior. He will be missed. I knew this was going to happen soon, I just hoped he would have went out on a better note. He was truly a great, talented, and special player.
A huge thank you to Junior. He will be missed. I knew this was going to happen soon, I just hoped he would have went out on a better note. He was truly a great, talented, and special player.
Pinbreaker
Well-known member
Griffey is the reason Seattle has the Mariners..
If Griffey wasn't here in 1995, the M's would be a memory like the Seattle Sonics..
It's a day that we knew was coming, but we didn't want to happen..
How many Griffey cards are hitting EBAY now?
If Griffey wasn't here in 1995, the M's would be a memory like the Seattle Sonics..
It's a day that we knew was coming, but we didn't want to happen..
How many Griffey cards are hitting EBAY now?
bowmanchromeandorr
New member
Re: Ken Griffey Jr Retiring
100% agree with the statement. i tell all the kids i coach to go on youtube punch in "ken griffey jr" and watch his swing. the purest most fluid swing i ever saw... i may even shed a tear over this, it is truly a sad day for sports. in five years, we'll see him enshrined in cooperstown
championMan said:
100% agree with the statement. i tell all the kids i coach to go on youtube punch in "ken griffey jr" and watch his swing. the purest most fluid swing i ever saw... i may even shed a tear over this, it is truly a sad day for sports. in five years, we'll see him enshrined in cooperstown
BunchOBull
Active member
Sam Banks said:
lol at the person who said Frank Thomas is a prime candidate for juicing when evidence is all to the contrary. Try Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa...those guys see a bit more prime.
magicpapa
Well-known member
- Aug 7, 2008
- 10,386
- 1,958
from beckett boards
We all know the card.
And we probably all have one.
But on Wednesday evening, just minutes ago, times officially changed …an era ended.
“The Kid” called it quits as Ken Griffey Jr. opted to retire in the midst of his 22nd big league season, ending a Hall of Fame career with 630 home runs. He ranks fifth on the career list in an era marred by steroid allegations but perhaps first as a player who never faced such scrutiny and as one who was a first in one more significant way in collectors’ hearts.
The poster boy for the modern era of baseball cards, the guy who despised the “kid” nickname as an adult and yet often was seen with his cap on backwards and with a childlike disposition on the field, the face of the first 1989 Upper Deck baseball card … is no longer apart of the game.
That, for many, should resonate loudly. (Makes you feel kind of old, too, right?)
Griffey’s youthful image was captured on that first card… the toothy smile, the slightly puffy 1980s hair, the hint of some bling. And it was only reinforced as he made his major league debut at age 19 that summer with the Seattle Mariners all those years ago and took the field alongside his father, a moment not only significant in baseball history but also one that tugs at the inner child heartstrings of those who remembered “having a catch” with pops.
And yet it did even that one better.
But that was just the starting point not only for a kid, who would become a man and a legend before our own eyes summer after summer. He would become a 13-time All-Star, a 10-time Gold Glover and an American League MVP. It also was a start of something different in baseball cards, an era of more slickly made memories, ones with tamper-proof measures, holograms and technology instead of bubble gum and symbolically, he was the player leading the way.
Have we seen the last of Griffey on cardboard? Definitely not, but his autographs were an exclusive find in Upper Deck baseball products … something with an apparent similarly vanishing, perhaps similarly gone,presence this year. Could one of the game’s most elegant and desirable (yet available) autographs be found in packs of Topps baseball cards down the line?
One will have to wait and see but for the love of the game, let’s hope he can find a place.
Until then, though, there are 13,252 different cards — 1,224 different autographs — for us to chase. And while there are plenty of those memorable 1989 Upper Deck RCs out there — and likely plenty more than we can imagine left to go around — now is the time as the highlight reel moments and odes to Junior roll that fans, collectors and others dig out their treasures for another look. They seek them out for another reaffirming glance, to soak up and hold in their hands a relic of an era that is now officially over.
Legends rarely get those exits that are truly worthy of their legacy —at least not without help — but there’s comfort knowing that Griffey’s better years, those youthful years where there was plenty more to come, can always be found and revisited.
Those memories can be revisited at any time, after the highlight reels are no longer played and after the Twitter tags trend downward, on baseball cards. That goes for any player, but something tells me that this one, card No. 1 of a certain Star Rookie … a kid who was that andso much more, will be remembered for a long, long time.
Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball
We all know the card.
And we probably all have one.
But on Wednesday evening, just minutes ago, times officially changed …an era ended.
“The Kid” called it quits as Ken Griffey Jr. opted to retire in the midst of his 22nd big league season, ending a Hall of Fame career with 630 home runs. He ranks fifth on the career list in an era marred by steroid allegations but perhaps first as a player who never faced such scrutiny and as one who was a first in one more significant way in collectors’ hearts.
The poster boy for the modern era of baseball cards, the guy who despised the “kid” nickname as an adult and yet often was seen with his cap on backwards and with a childlike disposition on the field, the face of the first 1989 Upper Deck baseball card … is no longer apart of the game.
That, for many, should resonate loudly. (Makes you feel kind of old, too, right?)
Griffey’s youthful image was captured on that first card… the toothy smile, the slightly puffy 1980s hair, the hint of some bling. And it was only reinforced as he made his major league debut at age 19 that summer with the Seattle Mariners all those years ago and took the field alongside his father, a moment not only significant in baseball history but also one that tugs at the inner child heartstrings of those who remembered “having a catch” with pops.
And yet it did even that one better.
But that was just the starting point not only for a kid, who would become a man and a legend before our own eyes summer after summer. He would become a 13-time All-Star, a 10-time Gold Glover and an American League MVP. It also was a start of something different in baseball cards, an era of more slickly made memories, ones with tamper-proof measures, holograms and technology instead of bubble gum and symbolically, he was the player leading the way.
Have we seen the last of Griffey on cardboard? Definitely not, but his autographs were an exclusive find in Upper Deck baseball products … something with an apparent similarly vanishing, perhaps similarly gone,presence this year. Could one of the game’s most elegant and desirable (yet available) autographs be found in packs of Topps baseball cards down the line?
One will have to wait and see but for the love of the game, let’s hope he can find a place.
Until then, though, there are 13,252 different cards — 1,224 different autographs — for us to chase. And while there are plenty of those memorable 1989 Upper Deck RCs out there — and likely plenty more than we can imagine left to go around — now is the time as the highlight reel moments and odes to Junior roll that fans, collectors and others dig out their treasures for another look. They seek them out for another reaffirming glance, to soak up and hold in their hands a relic of an era that is now officially over.
Legends rarely get those exits that are truly worthy of their legacy —at least not without help — but there’s comfort knowing that Griffey’s better years, those youthful years where there was plenty more to come, can always be found and revisited.
Those memories can be revisited at any time, after the highlight reels are no longer played and after the Twitter tags trend downward, on baseball cards. That goes for any player, but something tells me that this one, card No. 1 of a certain Star Rookie … a kid who was that andso much more, will be remembered for a long, long time.
Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball
