Leading off, you may be asking yourself why this is the first post on this site since the end of October? The reason is simply, I just couldn't top my last post after the ALCS.
This is supposed to be the happiest week of the year, pitchers and catchers had to report by yesterday to spring training. There are stories that come out of each team's camps, stories like Jon Lester has gained 5 lbs since the end of last season, Justin Masterson and his wife drove to Fort Myers from Indiana in a Mini Cooper, (by the way, Masterson is listed at 6'5). But this week has been dominated as it seems almost every spring is, with talks about steroids and impending litigation. Alex Rodriguez being tabbed for taking banned substances for at least 3 years (I say at least because where there is smoke, 3 years, there's fire, a career) and then having an epic interview with Peter Gammons. The point of the interview that no body mentioned in my opinion was, didn't it look like A-Rod was breaking out with hives around his eyes? He had red blotches around his eyes, in hd it was mesmerizing against his yellow looking skin. Unless Kramer has been cleaning his meat slicer with A-rod's hand towel again, someones under a little stress I would say.
So here, this is supposed to be the happiest time of the year and the first rights of spring and the topic of conversation has been completely based on A-rod, steroids and Brett Favre. (Did you know he retired?)
A story is forming as we speak that could be the sun breaking through the clouds so to speak. Word is that the Seattle Mariners and living legend Ken Griffey Jr, are close to coming to terms on a one year deal with incentives that could trigger an extension. I was thinking to myself earlier this month how wrong it was that in this current economy that we are all living in, veterans and legends like Griffey Jr, Pudge Rodriguez, Sean Casey and Mike Timlin were not under contract and would probably be forced unjustly into retirement. This week however we have seen Casey retire but go directly to a nice gig with the MLB Network, and now possibly Griffey could get the homecoming that he so desperately sought back in 2000 when he signed with the Cincinnati Reds. Really though, this is a potential signing that could mean more to the fans and a generation that still believes George Kenneth Griffey Jr, was the greatest all around player they had ever seen. This is a belief that was held so easily that until McGuire and Sosa assaulted the record books in 1998 that every other player in the game could be good, but there was no argument, Griffey was the only one who was great. Yes, Ken Griffey Jr, in Seattle would help a generation (my generation) get over what has been a scared upbringing in the game of baseball. This could take us back, if only for a moment, to what we fell in love with before steroids and ugliness blurred our vision of the game. It's almost like Field of Dreams when Terrance Mann describes what people will feel when they come to the cornfield to watch baseball:
"For it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces."
Bring on the memories and perfect afternoon's that we as baseball fans from the 1990's lack these days.
~Sterling Pingree
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