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Carolina Red
02-19-2009, 01:03 AM
Just read this, he signed a one year deal for a little over 2 million plus incentives. He will report to camp Friday. Good for Jr. I hope he has a great year.

ChatterRed
02-19-2009, 01:55 AM
Daughtry's song "Home" seems appropriate.

Road Pop
02-19-2009, 03:54 AM
I wish him the best!

http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp39/hamertek98/grif.jpg

Sorry it's crooked... had to scan it.

reds77
02-19-2009, 08:10 AM
Pretty cool to see he's going back to Seattle to put on #24. I hope he has a great year.

redsfandan
02-19-2009, 08:34 AM
I'd love to be there when he's up to bat for the first time in front of the home crowd.
That will be LOUD!!! lol

UPRedsFan
02-19-2009, 08:39 AM
Wouldn't it be fitting in a year marked with controversy over ARod and the other 103 who shall remain nameless, that Junior is the come back player of the year since his knee is fixed? Imagine the stories that will be written and the special spotlights on MLB Network and ESPN if he has a decent season.

The baseball world will be pulling for him all season.

bounty37h
02-19-2009, 09:37 AM
^Up, so true!!!! I know I will be pulling for him as well!

redsfandan
02-19-2009, 09:56 AM
Griffey will have a $2 million base salary and up to $2.5 million in incentives based on at-bats and attendance." The M's are hoping he'll draw an additional 200,000 fans to Safeco Field this season. I think that's a lock.

xavr1
02-19-2009, 10:35 AM
Good for Griff. Definitely seems like the best decision.

justincredible
02-19-2009, 10:45 AM
This is much better news than when it looked like he was going to go to Atlanta. I hope he is healthy and goes on a tear to finish out his career where he started.

Jerome
02-19-2009, 10:49 AM
It's so magical!


http://jeromesredscare.blogspot.com

Jack Burton
02-19-2009, 11:15 AM
Hope they aren't expecting too much because Griffey is finished at this point.

adampad
02-19-2009, 11:18 AM
Thank goodness he didn't go to Atlanta. Even though my hatred of the Braves isn't so strong these days, Griffey realistically needs the AL. I hope he has a great year in Seattle. Good luck Jr.

Jack Burton
02-19-2009, 11:23 AM
Skip Bayless just ripped Griffey on ESPN First Take, called him "lazy" and "pathetic" amongst other things.

DTCromer
02-19-2009, 11:32 AM
Skip Bayless just ripped Griffey on ESPN First Take, called him "lazy" and "pathetic" amongst other things.

Pathetic is too harsh. I can accept lazy though.

Steviejoe
02-19-2009, 11:59 AM
Who said "you can't go home again". I hope him the best and he has great numbers,just kinda had a feeling that's where he would go.By the way THANK YOU GRIFF FOR YOU TIME IN CINCY.

reds1869
02-19-2009, 12:29 PM
Good for him. Griffey was my favorite player as a kid, and Ichiro is my current favorite. It will be really cool to see them in the same lineup, even if both have their better days in the rearview mirror.

ian_madden
02-19-2009, 12:35 PM
Griffey is a great player and we will miss him sorely. I wish him nothing but the best and I for one am very happy that he signed with an American League team. Hopefully they can put something together up there and get him in the playoffs.

will5979
02-19-2009, 01:21 PM
Would have been nice to see him play one more time. However, I can remember watching him during a weekend series against the Braves last year and WANTING the Reds to go ahead and trade him...now its hit me that we no longer have a player that has sentimental value such as Rose, Larkin, Griff, etc.:griffey:

Casey
02-19-2009, 01:31 PM
Good for him...I wish him nothing but the best.

ChatterRed
02-19-2009, 02:35 PM
Skip Bayless just ripped Griffey on ESPN First Take, called him "lazy" and "pathetic" amongst other things.

Yeah, Skip always was classy. :rolleyes:

akron3344
02-19-2009, 02:39 PM
truth must hurt

reds1869
02-19-2009, 05:56 PM
truth must hurt

The truth? The truth is Jr. has over 600 career HRs and is one of the best pure hitters to ever play the game. You don't achieve either of those things by being lazy or pathetic.

Chi-Town Red
02-19-2009, 06:00 PM
Skip Bayless is a tool

bgwilly31
02-19-2009, 06:01 PM
Should have never left there.

It will be cool to see his first AB back in seattle at home.

Anybody know if seattle opens up at home this yr>?

Jack Burton
02-19-2009, 06:05 PM
By the way THANK YOU GRIFF FOR YOU TIME IN CINCY.

Yup, thanks for nothing.

Kingspoint
02-19-2009, 06:08 PM
Griffey will have a $2 million base salary and up to $2.5 million in incentives based on at-bats and attendance." The M's are hoping he'll draw an additional 200,000 fans to Safeco Field this season. I think that's a lock. If the rest of their Offense wasn't so putrid, it'd be nice seeing him back there. Unfortunately, half of their starters will be putting up OBP's of .300. You can't score any runs with that many automatic outs. Imagine a lineup with 4 Corey Patterson's in it and you've got your 2009 Mariners.

Kingspoint
02-19-2009, 06:10 PM
I'll catch a few up there, for sure, though. I do think he'll add half a million more in the stands.

reds1869
02-19-2009, 06:11 PM
Should have never left there.

It will be cool to see his first AB back in seattle at home.

Anybody know if seattle opens up at home this yr>?

They open on the road in Minnesota.

Jack Burton
02-19-2009, 06:19 PM
Saw this article posted in The ORG

http://www.cbssports.com/columns/story/11399387


Ken Griffey's quest for love will continue in Seattle, where one of the most naturally talented players in baseball history will seek the adoration of strangers at the expense of his family. Which makes no sense at all.

But that's Ken Griffey Jr.

He makes no sense at all.

If this comes as news to you, pay attention, because it's real and it's true. Junior and I have a (very small) history, and I suppose you should take that into consideration as you read this story, but any media member who has ever covered him -- and any team official who has ever worked with him -- will tell you that Junior's urge to be liked is shocking.

And the things he will do to satisfy that craving are equally shocking. And a little depressing. And ultimately, disappointing.

And unlikable.

Which is the saddest irony of all. In his desperate quest to be liked, Ken Griffey does bizarre, dislikable things. His most recent decision is his most bizarre decision yet, choosing Seattle over Atlanta for the 2009 season. The teams were offering similar contracts, starting jobs and rebuilding teams. Everything about the two offers was equal, except for one thing:

They like Junior in Seattle. After getting a taste of him during interleague play in 2007, they crave him. And nobody craves to be craved like Ken Griffey.

So all that talk about doing things "for my family," as he has said over the years, is a bunch of crap. Junior, as I have always suspected, is full of crap. Because if he were all about his family, as he has said time and again, he'd be an Atlanta Brave right now.

The Braves' spring training site is 20 minutes from Griffey's home in Orlando. Spring training lasts only six weeks, true, but Atlanta has family roots as well -- his daughter plays on an AAU basketball team in the Atlanta area. He could watch her game on a Saturday morning and play his own game that night at Turner Field.

Plus Atlanta is a short plane ride from Orlando, where his son will start playing high school football later this summer. Junior could be home in about an hour. Or his wife and kids could come to him in about an hour. Seattle? That's a haul. That is quite literally the farthest MLB franchise from his family. With them in mind, Griffey couldn't have continued his professional career in a less convenient place than Seattle -- unless he wanted to be a Nippon Ham Fighter.

If Griffey were all about loving his family, he'd be an Atlanta Brave.

But just like Alex Rodriguez, whose insecure search for love is baffling considering his fame, fortune and achievements, Griffey is all about getting love for himself. And so he's a Seattle Mariner. And they do love him in Seattle. Well, they love him now. They didn't love him in 1999 when he left the Mariners for Cincinnati, his first bizarrely insecure career move.

At the time, Griffey forced the Mariners to trade him by saying he'd leave -- for nothing in return -- as a free agent. So Seattle got what it could for him and sent him where he wanted to go all along, to the Reds. Griffey had said he wanted to be closer to his family in Orlando, but he helped engineer the trade not to Atlanta, which wanted him and which would have made the most sense from a family standpoint, but to Cincinnati.

Why Cincinnati?

Because they loved him in Cincinnati.

Griffey grew up in Cincinnati, where his father was a member of the (still) beloved Big Red Machine and where the son, Junior, became the best high school player in the country. All those years later, Cincinnati still loved him. Seattle, meanwhile, was falling out of love with Griffey, whose immaturity and insecurity were starting to become apparent. Griffey saw the writing on the wall, and bolted.

For his family.

Barf.

In fairness to Griffey, Cincinnati was awful to him. Awful. Griffey wasn't the player or the person Cincinnati had been led to believe -- he started getting injured and he was coldly corporate, no longer the happy-go-lucky kid who wore his hat backward and climbed outfield walls like Spider-Man -- and Cincinnati reacted badly. There were racists in the bleachers. There were mean people on the radio. The Reds stunk, and Griffey was blamed. Not fair.

And then I contributed.

I had a radio show in 2007, and Griffey was a target. Hell, you know me -- everyone was a target. But Griffey had family and his agent in town, and they heard the things I would say, and they would tell Junior. So he knew who I was every time I walked into the clubhouse. He threw a water bottle at me one day, not playfully, when my back was turned. He missed. (Gold Glove my ass.) He and his stooge Adam Dunn snickered at me. And Griffey even would ask other reporters, friendlier reporters, what I wanted, what I was doing, why I was there.

So that's the history. Feel free to discount everything I've written about him here, because that's easier for you than to believe that Junior, the kid, the carefree superstar with the boyish smile and sugary swing, is just another insecure man-child whose desire to be loved trumps all else.

But when you're done with that, you silly little Griffey fanboy, answer me a question:

If Junior is all about his family, as he has said for years, why did he pick Seattle over Atlanta?

akron3344
02-19-2009, 06:35 PM
thanks for what? continuing the legacy of squeaking ahead of the pirates in the race for last

JBChance
02-19-2009, 10:22 PM
Saw this article posted in The ORG

http://www.cbssports.com/columns/story/11399387

When I read your post, I was thinking "Who wrote this article?" Then, hit the link and saw it was Doyel. Of course, I thought, that would make perfect sense. It has all the hallmarks of a Gregg Doyel "piece":

Opinionated ranting - check
Rampant hyperbole - check
"Journalistic" bias - check
Fabrication of facts - check

Yes, this "piece" surely resembles the subject of this old adage: If it smells like it and it looks like it, it is it.

But, that's what you get w/ Doyel; to call him an incompetent writer is an affront to all incompetent writers.

When you see a "piece" like this, the proper thing to do is flush it.

robmadden1
02-20-2009, 07:11 AM
I heard on Hot Stove (MLB Network) that the Mariners president wants Griffey to play left feild if when he was calling into the show.

Heres the video of it:

http://seattle.mariners.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?mid=200902203853994

bounty37h
02-20-2009, 10:25 AM
Hope they aren't expecting too much because Griffey is finished at this point.

Hey Jack, why dont ya follow Jill down that hill with your constant negativity????

bounty37h
02-20-2009, 10:27 AM
truth must hurt

Good point. I would really like to tell the truth about how I feel about you from your posts, but it would hurt me, as I would be banned. So yes, this is the first post I can recall ever agreeing with you in, truth hurts.

BlastFurnace
02-20-2009, 10:50 AM
I just wish his time in Cincinnati was what is was supposed to be. It's a shame how his body just gave out.

Jack Burton
02-22-2009, 09:50 PM
Hey Jack, why dont ya follow Jill down that hill with your constant negativity????

Good one.

EdSqaubensee
02-23-2009, 09:14 AM
This is hilarious. Jr is such a little baby. oh well, at least he rocked for cincy. answer me this; why was Ken Griffey Jr ever an all star for the National League or for the reds? WHY? HE SUCKED

bounty37h
02-23-2009, 10:12 AM
"
answer me this; why was Ken Griffey Jr ever an all star for the National League or for the reds? WHY? HE SUCKED"
So, your saying he was an all-star because he sucked? Define sucked then for me please?:confused::rolleyes::thumbdown

DannyB
02-28-2009, 08:45 AM
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-bba-mariners-griffey-debut,0,5243295.story

PEORIA, Ariz. (AP) — Ken Griffey Jr.'s first spring training game in his return to the Seattle Mariners won't come until Wednesday against Australia's national team.

Manager Don Wakamatsu said Thursday that the 39-year-old looks great, four months after arthroscopic left knee surgery. But the rookie manager wants to ease the active home runs leader back into action.

Griffey is taking batting practice and participating in daily outfield drills. The Mariners plan to use him initially as a designated hitter and probably not in consecutive games.

He hopes to be ready to play left field by the April 6 opener at Minnesota.

Root Down
03-01-2009, 11:03 AM
This is hilarious. Jr is such a little baby. oh well, at least he rocked for cincy. answer me this; why was Ken Griffey Jr ever an all star for the National League or for the reds? WHY? HE SUCKED

600 home runs with no steroids. I think it's pretty hard to say he sucked. This man was one of the best to play the game, give him some credit.

Eric_the_Red
03-01-2009, 12:39 PM
I agree. It seems some baseball fans want their players to play at the same level at 35 as they did at 25, not miss any games, consistently hit 450' homeruns and do other things that only PEDs can make a player capable of, but the minute they are found out to be taking them, the fans turn on them.

Which is it? Do you want players to play honest and gradually (and naturally) decline with age, or to cheat and keep hitting dingers?

Jack Burton
03-01-2009, 10:26 PM
600 home runs with no steroids.

And you're certain?

Root Down
03-02-2009, 08:40 AM
And you're certain?

Should we assume everyone that hits 500+ is on steroids? Yeah I'm pretty sure, or we'd be talking 700+.

Eric_the_Red
03-02-2009, 08:51 AM
If Jr was juiced, I think you'd hear rumblings about it by now.