It was a good couple of weeks to be a nostalgic sports fan. You had Brett Favre quitting like it was 2007, Tiger Woods playing like it was 2006, Shaq and Kobe winning like it was 2002, and Roger Federer looking mortal like it was -- good Lord. I can't even remember when. It's been a while.
But if there was one indication that the nostalgia had gone too far, it came a week ago today.
Last Wednesday night, Ken Griffey, Jr. backed out of an imminent free-agent signing with Atlanta, deciding at the last minute to return to Seattle and rejoin the Mariners team franchise that had elevated him to superstardom in the 1990s. It's refreshing; it's heartwarming; it's one of the great comeback stories we've seen in sports in recent memory.
It's also a bad idea. Maybe not for the Mariners' PR department and maybe not for the local media, but definitely for the Mariners as a baseball team.
We're talking about a Seattle team that won 61 games last year, untouchably the worst in the American League. Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA system has them projected to win 72 this season -- a huge improvement! -- but still tied for worst in the American League. The franchise has watched Ichiro Suzuki age, Raul Ibañez skip town and the pitching staff, with the exception of a young stud named Felix Hernandez, continually disappoint.
Its only hope is to rebuild around King Felix and a small crop of position-player prospects -- namely Wladimir Balentien, a 24-year-old corner outfielder who at least shows some raw power; Jeff Clement, a 25-year-old slugging catcher and DH; and Mike Carp, a doubles-hitting first baseman who, at 22, was a key piece of the New York Mets' trade for J.J. Putz.
Acquiring Griffey, whether he's used as a right fielder or a DH, is only going to block the development of at least one, if not all three, of these rising stars. It's easy to sell that move to TV executives, who are eager to showcase one of the era's few steroid-free legends and have never heard of Jeff Clement anyway. But how do you sell it to the men in the clubhouse? And what happens when he hits an awful midseason slump, like the .205-hitting June that led to his trade from Cincinnati last year? Won't that just make things worse? Can you bench the one and only Junior?
I'm not just writing this column to ask a bunch of rhetorical questions about a pathetic last-place team. The bigger issue is that one of the game's all-time greats, a man who hit 398 homers before age 30 in a Mariners uniform, is physically back where he started, but his image has gone from immortality to pity.
The cover of Sports Illustrated on May 17, 1999 called him "good enough to become the greatest slugger of all time." He was the only player under 30 named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in the famous ceremony before Game 2 of the '99 World Series. Hank Aaron, when asked by the AP in 2000 about his then-all-time home run record potentially being broken, replied, "I'd bet on Griffey."
But Barry Bonds did so instead, and Alex Rodriguez probably will next, and it's sad that a man with a far better reputation than either of them ever had is going out like this. Instead of simply being one of the greats, Griffey is going to cement his legacy by going out as a washed-up platoon guy on a bad team. Baseball has plenty of those. It doesn't have enough iconic players like the old Ken Griffey, Jr.
Cincinnati Reds rookie Jay Bruce made me chuckle a year ago when he said, "There's only one Ken Griffey." I wouldn't want him to be wrong in more ways than one.
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Evans Clinchy is a senior majoring in English. He can be reached at Evans.Clinchy@tufts.edu.
