Baseballhead:
He's the King

Michael Cox

Make no mistake, the events leading up to and including yesterday's Home Run Derby made one fact unmistakably clear:

Ken Griffey, Jr. is King.

The one the fans pay to see (and who they boo when they think they won't). The one who makes the media crazy by merely withdrawing from an exhibition competition. The one who steps in at the last minute and wins.

At this rate, "the Michael Jordan of Baseball" may soon be too mild a term to describe his value to Major League Baseball.

The initial announcement that he would not compete was met with slight disappointment; it was, after all, over a month prior to an event that most people really weren't too concerned with at the time. Griffey's reasons, as we've gone over before, were relatively sound (did you see how dog-tired everyone was at the press conference was? They had to prop Greg Maddux up to keep him upright) and no one would have given them too much thought, if in fact, it was anyone else but Griffey.

But as that month went by, Griffey's very talent in tailing Mark McGwire's home run pace (while managing to avoid the inane daily questions about it that McGwire has had to answer) did The (former) Kid in. The Derby was moved to prime time and a live telecast was announced after last year's assault on the record, and ESPN (who, ironically, kept Junior up playing a late game Sunday night) in particular was determined to make the Derby a Big Time Event.

Good for MLB, but bad for Griffey's plan. As the Derby approached, more and more sports "journalists" took it upon themselves to upbraid him for his obvious lack of couth. Probably the worst such article was written by Denver columnist Bob Kravitz (picked up by ESPNet, where it subsequently mysteriously disappeared today), whose motivation actually appeared to be that Griffey wouldn't talk to him. Kravitz' alleged "writing" included the following (from the Rocky Mountain News):

Now you look at Ken Griffey Jr., and you think, "Punk."

You think, "Typical spoiled brat jerk ballplayer."

You think, "Just like the rest of them."

And you know what? You're right.

Now, I look at writing like this and think "asshole", and "no-talent who should be getting coffee for actual columnists instead of posing as one," but I wouldn't say that in public...

Oops.

Only two questions were raised by the piece: Why do Kravitz' bosses continue to employ him, and how does a talented guy like Rob Neyer look himself in the mirror after sharing a website with that crap?

Back to our story. Thus incited, when Junior was introduced at the mandatory workout Tuesday morning, he was lustily booed. It was the sound of 50K folks who paid to see Junior, and who felt cheated because they'd only get McGwire, Alex Rodriguez and Jim Thome. Poor fans. Still, Griffey appeared to realize that the lack of sleep and the insane schedule weren't the fans' fault; whatever problems there were, the fans were likely the only ones not to blame.

So our man-Kid bucked up, swallowed his pride and agreed to appear after all. And when he was announced, the very same fifty thousand who booed as one cheered. Some even stood. To them, he would never be a "jerk" or a "punk", but a hero who hadn't understood. But he did now, and that's what mattered to the fans.

If this is beginning to sound like a fairy tale (and I know it's too sickeningly close to one for my liking), I'll cut short the heroic, happy ending. He won the damn thing, won it in that seemingly effortless way that he always plays the game, and thanked the "four million reasons" that changed his mind. If that's not a legend in progress, I don't know what is.

Of course, afterwards the sports "journalists" either apparently forgot that he actually participated or were mad that he didn't thank them for his career, because they grilled him again about his attempted afternoon of rest. If anything, that moment, more than the fan reaction or even the Derby win, cemented Griffey's stardom. When the press goes at you that hard for something that not only hurt nobody, but didn't even leave anyone unhappy, you're either the President or a superstar.

The moral of our story: As long as there's a press, happy endings are always up for debate.

Michael Cox valiantly fought the "hard drive curse of Strikethree.com" to bring you this article. If you don't like it, revive his dead partition and he'll write a better one just for you, in which Juan Gonzalez discovers a new Creatine side effect which necessitates a triple-D cup. He's at mc@strikethree.com.