Even a home-run king must bow to the people.
All baseball fans wanted was Ken Griffey Jr. to say he loved us. All Junior needed to do was get off his butt and swing for the fences.
A reluctant hero was crowned Monday as champion of a home-run contest that’s part of All-Star Game festivities. But the night was won by Coors Field‘s 51,231 spectators. Just plain folks did something genuinely rare. They changed a little bit of sports history by refusing to be cheated and making themselves heard.
While turning the crowd’s boos to cheers with waves of his bat, maybe Junior finally grew up and learned how a real sports icon acts. At age 28, Griffey has finally figured it out: Never become so big, so rich and so important, that you lose touch with the little boy in every athlete.
Griffey blasted baseballs into the cheap seats to beat Cleveland’s Jim Thome for the title. The people made Junior do it.
“I don’t like to get booed. I don’t think anybody does,” explained Griffey, stunned by the angry disapproval that crushed him as he accepted a trophy as the All-Star Game’s top vote-getter 90 minutes before the home-run contest began.
Before getting the message and joining the competition, Griffey had been guilty of nothing more than taking himself too seriously. His stubborn reluctance to enter Denver’s home-run derby did not mean Junior was a punk, as ignorant, bleating critics had insisted. The proper definition of a sports punk is Latrell Sprewell. Griffey is a ballplayer who inspires dreams in kids.
When did declining to participate in glorified batting practice become a felony? “I think it’s unfair. It’s an invitation. If you don’t want to do it, then you say no,” said the Seattle Mariners outfielder, slumping in the American League locker room early in the afternoon. He looked hurt.
Somebody asked baseball’s No. 1 star if he ever considered how his absence would disappoint fans. And Junior pleaded stupidity. “That didn’t come into my train of thought,” Griffey admitted.
What he forgot is a sin the United States almost never forgives. America hates to be ignored by its athletic royalty.
“This is the game of baseball that I love to play. You know, I wish I’d hear more players say that,” testified Mark McGwire, whose single 510-foot moonshot made him a hero in Colorado forever, although the St. Louis slugger was eliminated in the derby’s opening round.
We needed Griffey to reaffirm himself as worthy of our affection.
He might be better than Willie Mays, and with 35 homers at midseason, Junior is chasing the ghost of baseball’s holiest record. His annual salary is $8 million.
But, despite it all, Griffey remains one of us. Four million voters made him an all-star starter. His popularity is the creation of the people. In that lone respect, he will always be their servant.
Junior practices the art of the common man. The home run is the most democratic of thrills, because it can give the working-class bum in the bleacher a better seat than the CEO in the owner’s box.
How could Griffey have been so blind? Swinging for the fences is nothing except a silly game, precisely it’s perfect. Play for play’s sake.
“A home-run derby is what I cherish about baseball. It’s not much different than if you have nothing to do and nowhere to go … and you just want to go play catch,” said all-star Texas reliever John Wetteland. “A home-run derby is unadulterated. It’s pure. And, when we were kids, we all wanted to see how far we could hit that ball. That feeling is what’s fun about the sport. And fun is what’s missing too often in baseball. I love the home-run derby.”
There were 4 million reasons why he changed his mind, Griffey admitted.
But you should have seen the smile on Griffey’s 4-year-old son when daddy was smacking homers. The joy baseball can bring a little boy of any age always is the best reason to get in the game.
Junior knows that now.
