Ken Griffey, Jr is one of the last pure baseball players, even if his heyday seems like a lifetime ago. Now in the dog days of his career, Griffey has confirmed what we all knew: baseball is really boring:
Last week, when some members of the press corps asked manager Don Wakamatsu why he hadn’t used Griffey as a pinch hitter for Rob Johnson late in a game, Waskamatsu was vague.
Two Mariners players, however, weren’t. Both are younger players, fond of Griffey. Neither had an ax to grind.
So why didn’t Wakamatsu go to Junior off the bench?
“He was asleep in the clubhouse,” one player said. “He’d gone back about the fifth inning to get a jacket and didn’t come back. I went back in about the seventh inning – and he was in his chair, sound asleep.”
The other player, who knows Griffey a little better, tried to ratonalize.
“He doesn’t sleep well at night, he’s away from his family, he’s comfortable in the clubhouse,” he said. “They could have awakened him …”
It's a shame, because time ago, Griffey was the most exciting thing in baseball, as the catches below show. I was lucky enough to be in the stands at Yankee Stadium during the catch around 2.24, probably the greatest sporting feat I have witnessed with my own eyes.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrSqgIg8A3c[/youtube]
