Playing the right way

A week ago today, on Letters to Pilky, I put my feelings on that punkass whiney little prima donna sonuvabitch why the hell doesn't someone knock him unconscious come on ref T him up just one time to shut his little pretty boy mouth Lebron James.  To sum up 400 words in one phrase: I think Lebron James does things the wrong way.  He's not something that our first generation, blue collar immigrants would be proud to watch.

Someone who they would have been proud of was Ken Griffey Jr.

The prettiest follow-through in baseball

Ken Griffey did everything right.  He was one of the few true five tool players.  He hustled in the outfield, he hit singles, hit doubles, drove in runs, and most importantly, he hit home runs without ever once being connected to the rampant steroid allegations surrounding him.  He didn't wear excessive bling, his names were never in the headlines for anything but being a great ballplayer, and the only seemingly cocky issue about him was that he liked to wear his hat backwards, which stemmed back to the days when he had to wear his dad's hat that way because otherwise the brim would fall over his eyes.

Junior departed from Seattle because he wanted to be closer to his family in Cincinnati.  He willingly played for a worse team because he wanted to be where his parents were, where his kids were, where home was. 

He was a role model in that everything he didn't say said everything about him.  He played to play and was noticed because he deserved to be noticed.  He wasn't a pop culture figure, he was famous for being a baseball player, and a damn good one at that.  Spotlight was never the intention for Junior, it just came as a result of what he did. 

In the summer of 2008 I was in Cincinnati during the last few weeks of Griffey's stint with them.  I can't remember who they played, I don't know if they won, the score, who pitched, or anything else that I would normally remember about a game.  All I remember is that I got to see Ken Griffey play.  Someday, when his slide into home plate in the '95 ALDS comes on TV, I'll be able to say that I saw that kid play.  I saw him laugh in the outfield, I saw that beautiful swing, I saw him pull a single into right field.  There aren't many athletes that have had that affect on me.  Derek Jeter is one, Michael Jordan is one, Brett Favre is one, Cal Ripken is one, but they come few and far between.

But the best part about Ken Griffey Jr, in my opinion, is that he was a team player until the end.  A year and four days ago today he called it quits.  He retired mid-season, realizing that the Mariners could do a lot better than a .184 batting average.  Now, a year later, Jorge Posada is complaining because Joe Girardi put him in the nine hole.

You've stayed with me so far on this, so I'm hoping that you'll be willing to stick out this strange analogy I'm about to make:

In my Environment & Civilizations course my freshman year, we learned about a cold-weather nomadic tribe (I think in Alaska?  Northern Canada?  Definitely not Russia) that had to constantly be on the move to follow it's food supply.  Because of this, old people were a huge hindrance.  At the same time, they were obviously valued and were the source of all of the young people in the tribe, so nobody was going to call them out on this.  The elders, when they could no longer keep up the required pace, would leave at night, no goodbye, no see ya later, no nothin, and would simply walk away until they died.  It was the most noble thing to do.

In today's me-first, reality show athlete world, seeing Ken Griffey do a similar thing when he simply didn't show up at the ballpark on a Wednesday afternoon last June was very cool to me.  He knew that he had accomplished amazing things with his career, but he also knew that his time was up.  He didn't fight it, he didn't pull a trump card, he just stood up and walked away from the table and hasn't looked back.