We’re just a matter of days away from watching outfielder Ken Griffey Jr. and catcher Mike Piazza take their rightful places in baseball immortality when each man will be enshrined into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Griffey and Piazza will not only be remembered as two of the best players of their era of baseball, but also as two of the greatest players of all-time at their respective positions. And as we’ll see Piazza and Griffey looking as sharp as they can be this weekend, the two different trips that they took to get to this point are amazing.
Griffey grew up as a baseball brat as his father Ken Griffey Sr. played Major League Baseball for 19 years while winning a pair of World Series Championships with the Cincinnati Reds. Griffey Jr. would be the first overall pick of the 1987 MLB Draft by the Seattle Mariners. Griffey would make his debut in 1989 and he batted .264 with 16 home runs and 61 runs batted in. Griffey would finish third in the American League Rookie of the Year voting to Baltimore Orioles catcher Gregg Olsen, but you could see his potential.
In 1990, Griffey would hit .300 for the first time in his career and the Mariners would make history when they would acquire his father from the Reds marking the first time in Major League Baseball history that a father and son would play for the same team. And father and son made some more history on September 14, 1990 when they hit back-to-back home runs against the California Angels marking the first and only time in MLB history where father and son hit consecutive homers.
But by 1991, the star of the young Griffey really began to shine. Griffey batted .327 with 42 home runs and 100 runs batted in. Griffey would earn his second All-Star Game nod, along with his second Gold Glove Award with highlight reel catches such as the one where he robbed New York Yankees outfielder Jesse Barfield of a home run. Griffey would continue to be one of the games top players. And in spite of suffering a fractured wrist while crashing into the outfield wall at the Kingdome during the 1995 Major League Baseball season, Griffey was able to help the Mariners reach the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.
1995 saw Major League Baseball attempting to right all of the wrongs that were the result of the 1994 player’s strike as the season end without a World Series Champion being crowned. It also marked the addition of another postseason round which saw the playoff field expand from four teams to eight. And as the M’s were soaking in their first taste of postseason of baseball after they had caught the Angels to win the American League West, they found themselves a very worthy adversary in the Yankees who are the gold standard of baseball.
The Mariners would lose the first two games at Yankee Stadium in spite of three home runs by Griffey and they would head home for the next three. In Games 3 and 4 of the American League Divisional Series, the Yankees would jump out to early leads only to see the Mariners come back in win. And with the series on the line in Game 5, Griffey stepped to the forefront.
With the Mariners three outs from elimination in the 11th inning, Griffey stepped to the plate with second baseman Joey Cora representing the game-tying run at first base. Griffey would get a base hit as he now represented the winning run at first base. Designated hitter Edgar Martinez would lace a double to left field off of Yankees pitcher Jack McDowell that would easily bring Cora home from second base. Griffey was on his horse as soon as the ball left Martinez’s bat as he scored the series-winning run. Griffey’s hustle would epitomize the series for the M’s, while a renewed atmosphere for baseball in Seattle would lead to a new stadium for the club.
From 1996-2000, Griffey would hit at least 40 home runs in each season, including 56 in both 1996 and 1997. 1997 would see Griffey would win the only MVP award of his career as he helped the Mariners win the American League West for the second time in three years.
At the end of the 1999 Major League Baseball season, Griffey was set to become a free agent for the first time, and as he made hitting home runs look so easy, many baseball pundits pegged him as the guy that would one day surpass Hank Aaron as MLB’s all-time home run king. But Griffey expressed a desire to play closer to his family in Ohio which led him to joining the Reds. Griffey wouldn’t leave the Mariners empty handed as he was traded to the Reds. Griffey would then sign a nine-year, $112.5 million deal with the Reds in what many people saw as a discount. Griffey did so being that he grew up in Cincinnati and it was merely about him being closer to home.
But it wouldn’t be a pleasant homecoming for Griffey as injuries began to plague him. Griffey never played in more than 145 games with the Reds while he only made three All-Star appearances there.
On June 9, 2008, Griffey would hit his 600th home run becoming just the sixth man in Major League Baseball at the time to do so. After the Reds traded Griffey to the Chicago White Sox in 2008, he would become a free agent following the season. Griffey’s career would come full circle as he signed with the Mariners in 2009 to finish out his Major League Baseball career. Griffey’s skilled had greatly diminished, but he was still greeted with a hero’s welcome in the Pacific Northwest, and on June 2, 2010, he would hang up cleats for good and you knew that he would be bound for Cooperstown.
But for Piazza things were a little different on his journey. Unlike Griffey, Piazza was selected in the 62nd round of the 1988 Major League Baseball Draft by the Los Angeles Dodgers. And the only reason why the Dodgers drafted Piazza was that they were doing a favor to the team manager Tommy Lasorda who was his godfather.
There isn’t that much stock that is put into players who are selected in the 62nd round, but Piazza was undaunted. By 1992, Piazza would be a September call up as he was ready to show his worth. In 1993, Piazza would bat .318 with 35 home runs and 112 runs batted in to become the National League’s Rookie of the Year. But in spite of hitting 40 home runs for the Dodgers in 1997, Piazza didn’t want to sign a long-term contract to stay in Los Angeles. Piazza wanted to play for the New York Mets, but the Dodgers weren’t interested in trading him to the Big Apple which resulted in him being traded to the Florida Marlins in 1998. However after being with the Marlins for a week, Piazza would get his wish as he was traded to the Mets.
After a slow start with the Mets, Piazza found himself the subject of immense criticism in New York City as he was continuously booed by fans. But Piazza would get it going as he batted .348 for the Mets with 23 home runs and 76 runs batted in as New York barely missed making the playoffs. In the off-season Piazza would sign a seven-year, $105 million deal to remain with the Mets and he would go on to become a New York icon.
In 1999, Piazza would help the Mets reach the postseason for the first time since 1999, and in 2000, New York would win the National League Pennant for the first time since 1986. Piazza would go on to have great moments in a Mets uniform with none bigger than what he did against the Atlanta Braves in 2001.
When the Mets took the field against the Braves on September 21,2001, it marked the first sporting event in New York City after the terrorist attacks on September 11. Shea Stadium was near capacity as the Mets and Braves put their rivalry aside for one night to honor the United States of America. With the Mets trailing the Braves in the eighth inning, Piazza stepped to the plate and launched a two-run homer deep into the Flushing night. Piazza would receive a curtain call for the ages as the Mets would go on to win the game 3-2.
By 2003, injuries were beginning to catch up with Piazza as the years of squatting behind the plate were taking their toll on his body. Piazza was no longer the power hitter that he once was and after the 2005 Major League Baseball season, he and the Mets would part ways.
Piazza still wanted to play as he spent 2006 with the San Diego Padres, and 2007 with the Oakland Athletics. Piazza would finish his Major League Baseball career with 427 home runs which is more than any other catcher in MLB history. But unlike Griffey who was able to coast to Cooperstown with 99.3% percent of the writers voting for him on his first year on the ballot which is a record, Piazza had to sweat it out as he has been on the ballot since 2013. It would take Piazza four times on the ballot before he finally received the 75% of the votes needed for enshrinement as rumors of him using performance-enhancing drugs hindered him.
But they were only rumors as Piazza has never been linked to performance-enhancing drugs, while the writers that weren’t voting for him found themselves being outed by their colleagues for their ignorance.
Like Griffey, Piazza’s enshrinement in Cooperstown is well deserved as they defined an era of baseball and they had different ways of displaying their excellence. Griffey had a natural home run swing and he never considered himself to be a power hitter, while he was arguably the best defensive center fielder since Willie Mays. Piazza on the other hand scrapped and clawed his way to being a baseball icon and he will always be remembered for his mammoth home runs.
Naturally Griffey will enter the Hall of Fame as a Mariner becoming the first player to do so, while Piazza will enter as a Met being that he had more iconic moments in Queens, and he will join Tom Seaver as the only two players to represent the franchise in Cooperstown.
The roads that Griffey and Piazza took were totally different, but they both made the most of their opportunity when greatness came calling.
Source: Baseball-reference.com
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