Dear Mr. Kenneth Griffey Junior,
Before I get into all of your illustrious contributions to the game and to my life as a fan of yours, I would just like to thank you for saving baseball in Seattle. Thank you for being our guy when so many others have left us. You were the one that got away, and then you were the one that came back.
Allow me to tell you a story or two.
Today is a very sad day for me and for many of my fellow Seattle Mariners fans. For most of my generation, we all grew up with you. Our lives developed along the same timeline as your career. You made your Major League debut in the same year in which I was born.
My father at that time worked in the Seattle Mariners organization as the Vice President of Ballpark Operations. He used to walk me through the clubhouse as an infant past the lockers of Alvin Davis and your father. Mr. Mariner (Alvin Davis) would always check in to see how I was doing and my father also developed a minor personal relationship with you when you were first called up all those years ago.
Alas, my family moved to Kansas City right at the time when your career began to take off in earnest. My earliest memories as a kid playing and watching baseball are all of you Junior. I remember playing baseball out in the cul de sac, pretending to be you at the plate with my hat backwards, waiting for a fastball to smack into the neighbor's yard as I trotted around our makeshift bases, imagining that I was you. I would even volutneer to play center field, because that's where you played Ken for so many years.
As I pretended to be you on those dry, hot Kansas summer afternoons, you became the best player of a generation. Whether it was hitting home runs in eight consecutive games or robbing player after player of home runs by extending that arm of yours over the teal coloured walls of the Kingdome, your star shone brightest of all.
And then when I moved away from Maryland in 2000, you moved too. You left my beloved Mariners in order to go home to Cincinnati. I left my friends in Maryland to go to the place I had called home for the longest time in my life, Kansas. As fans of yours, we all understood on some level why you wished to return home. We mourned your departure, but prospered in your absence, making it all the way to the American League Championship Series and falling short of our World Series dream to the New York Yankees. Boy we could have used your bat then Junior.
And then next season in 2001 we tied the Major League record for wins in a season while your career began to decline due to injuries. I moved back to Seattle that year and man Griffey, I wish you would have been there to greet me at Safeco Field with that big smile of yours. The reckless abandon with which you patrolled center field at the Kingdome started to catch up with you. And as your career waned, so did our beloved Mariners.
As you struggled with injuries, we Mariners fans struggled to watch year after year of broken promises and bad contracts. When you returned on June 22, 2007 to Safeco Field for the first time, I was there too. You may have missed me in that sellout crowd on a beautiful summer night in the Pacific Northwest. 47,116 fans stood and applauded you as you came out to speak to us. And you told us everything we wanted to hear. There was not a dry eye in the house.
When you hit two homeruns on June 24, your last day in town, I was there too. I remember reflecting to my father that having watched you play and duplicate past glories by not only showing off the sweetest swing ever witnessed on a baseball diamond, but also with a diving catch, that I had seen everything I could have ever wanted. Little did I know you would come back just to dazzle me one more time.
Junior, during the summer of 2008 I worked at Nationals Park selling team merchandise. I remember as the trade deadline neared hoping that you would remain a Cincinnati Red so that I would have the opportunity to watch you play at least one more time. I even got the day off from work. But then Ken Williams traded for you and you went off to Chicago. I thought to myself, maybe I just missed out on my last opportunity to watch my favorite player of all-time in person. But thankfully it was not.
I remember in the cold winter of 2008/2009 anxiously awaiting your decision on which team would be your last. Never did the thought cross my mind of you in an Atlanta Braves uniform Griffey. It's like imagining you in Yankee pinstripes, you always knew better. You always knew where your true home really was. When you announced that you were returning to Seattle to finish your career where it all started, I remember myself being on the verge of tears Griff. As soon as I had the money, I bought your jersey online. The day it came was such a beautiful day.
When I returned home from school, my first priority was to get out to 1st Avenue and Edgar Martinez Drive to watch you play the game you always played with such ease and enjoyment. I sat behind home plate with my high school friend and fellow baseball aficionado Connor Folse. As we watched the game unfold, I couldn't help but wonder when you would make your mark on it. Sure enough you did. You hit a game-tying two-run home run over the right centerfield wall.
Barely a week later Junior, on my 20th birthday, you hit another home run. I remember saying to my family that if you hit a home run it would be the best birthday present of all. And you did Griffey, you did.
And then that tub of lard Carlos Silva carried you around Safeco Field at the end of 2009 as we all watched you with a mix of horror and fascination take what appeared to be your final lap around the beautiful stadium you did so much to help build. I thought to myself, so ends the career of the greatest baseball player and one of the greatest men to every play the game I had come to love.
But that simply was not you. Like the 1995 Refuse To Lose Mariners, you simply refused to believe that your career had ended. You were rejuvenated by the trades for Cliff Lee and Milton Bradley and the free agent signing of Chone Figgins. You thought maybe this would be the year you could win that World Championship you always wanted to cap off a brilliant career. But then you took a nap in the clubhouse Junior. Why did you have to do that? It allowed lesser men to make a mockery of you.
And on May 20 of this year, you finally committed your last act of late-inning magic. And I remember, because I was there. Sitting out in the left field corner on a cold Seattle afternoon, you made me believe that there may have been some magic left in that old bat of yours. With two on in the bottom of the ninth, you served a base hit into right field that plated the winning run. The few that were there to witness it had no idea this would the last time they would witness that beautiful swing deliver something great for the city of Seattle.
Your greatness was always a given Junior. The spot you received on the All-Century Team was more than deserved. It was made for you the moment you stepped on that ghastly astroturf they had at the Kingdome. As you once predicted, there would come a day when we would look for your big smile in that dugout and you would just be gone. You will always be our favorite son Griffey. And you have been an inspiration to us all.
Sincerely Yours,
Charles Klein and the City of Seattle.
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