NEWSLETTER
A random, cool, bouncing tribute to a sure-fire first-ballot Hall of Famer this year:
It's Reds vs. Mariners on Sat, May 21. 25K fans will take home a Ken Griffey Jr. dual bobblehead (both team unis) pic.twitter.com/MfE0G5P7ly
— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) November 14, 2015
It’s no Chris Denorfia Bobblehead Army, but still cool.
Griffey was famously traded to the Reds by the Mariners before the 2000 season when he was just one year away from free agency. It was actually a fascinating process if you forget how it all played out, and how the Mariners had almost no leverage to get much of a return for one of the best players in baseball. Still, the Mariners avoided Griffey’s precipitous decline and most expensive seasons – it’s still so striking to see how good he was in Seattle, and how much less good he was in Cincinnati.
Random: You know what stinks? In the strike-shortened 1994 season, Griffey was hitting .323/.402/.674 through 111 games. That could have become an historically significant season if not for the strike. He wound up hitting 40 homers in those 111 games.
