Gregg Doyel has already taken his wrath out on Marvin Harrison in very spiteful fashion. That was, and still is, one of my favorite posts I have written (if I do say so myself). Gregg and I have love/hate relationship. I loved his column about how A-Rod should sue the government and generally hate it when he takes out vendettas he has on athletes. This time Ken Griffey Jr. has pissed Gregg off. What did he do? He chose the Mariners over the Braves. Not that it really matters which of these non-contender teams Griffey chooses but it still upsets Gregg.
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.
Ah yes, I remember the first two seasons of "Ken Griffey Jr.'s Quest for Love" on VH1.
Gregg thinks that Ken Griffey Jr. has a bizarre need to be loved and he doesn't appear to like him because of this. Gregg has an intense need to be hated, which is why he relishes receiving hate mail and has a sentence in pretty much every column asking everyone to hate him.
And the things he will do to satisfy that craving are equally shocking. And a little depressing. And ultimately, disappointing.
Does he make out in hot tubs with loads of skanky women hoping to find the one that is his true love? Does he hang around bars late at night asking everyone if they know who he is? I do remember that time he was supposed to sing the National Anthem at a basketball game in Seattle and ended up actually singing "You Must Love Me" from Evita. That was a little depressing and disappointing.
His most recent decision is his most bizarre decision yet, choosing Seattle over Atlanta for the 2009 season.
The audacity. He chose the team that he played with for 11 seasons where he could DH all the time over a team that was going to have him platoon in LF, which is a position he has limited experience at regardless of how many at-bats the team was willing to give him. Clearly this decision was completely about how much he hates his family though and not about an opportunity for one more farewell in the city that he has tons of fond memories about. It also clearly not about being able to DH anytime he wants and not having to play LF. That's what Gregg wants you to believe.
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.
I don't know. A-Rod is pretty bad himself with needing to be liked. Even his eyes say, "please love me," which Madonna gladly does. (I still don't get why he shacks up with Madonna...this clearly scares me)
There are tons of other athletes that just have to be liked and I have never counted Griffey among them. Of course, I probably don't know him like Gregg knows Griffey.
The Braves' spring training site is 20 minutes from Griffey's home in Orlando.
According to this site, Ken Griffey Jr. has made about $147 million dollars in his baseball career, I think he is able to purchase a plane ticket, or perhaps an actual plane, so his family can come see him when he wants them to. When you are talking about millionaires, decisions about which team to play for is usually not a family decision because they can afford to have the family travel back and forth.
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.
Again, he is very wealthy and this decision was not about his family, it was about where he wanted to play baseball next year.
If Griffey were all about loving his family, he'd be an Atlanta Brave.
Actually, if he really cared about loving his family and did not want to bitch slap them with his message of hate from Seattle, he would go play for the Tampa Bay Rays or the Florida Marlins. I would imagine those are closer to Orlando than Atlanta. So why Atlanta?
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.
Generally when a franchise's best player forces that team to trade him while he is still one of the best players in the league and the team was building a great nucleus of young ball players, the fans tend to hate this. Then after a while they got over and it and they like him again.
Not to mention Seattle has a history of being cheap with their stars, so you really can't blame Griffey. Think of all the stars they let get away, Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey Jr, and Alex Rodriguez, just to name a few. I realize it would have been expensive to sign all those players, plus it is always so rainy up there in Seattle, it has to be a little depressing, so I can see why players leave.
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.
Sure, Griffey should have just gotten himself traded to the Atlanta Braves who would have put him....where again? They had a centerfielder who was arguably better defensively in Andruw Jones and he was very much cheaper than Griffey. I am not sure if I ever recall the Braves ever being in serious talks to acquire Griffey. Regardless, Gregg's fascination with Griffey playing in Atlanta needed to be satisfied, and because it wasn't, Griffey hates his family.
Griffey could not force the Braves to acquire him.
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.
I like how Gregg is criticizing Griffey for moving from Chicago to Seattle this past offseason where he is further away from his family, but still doesn't give him credit for moving from Seattle to Cincinnati to be closer to his family in 1999. He never said he wanted to play baseball in his family's backyard, he just wanted to be closer to his family and he was for almost 10 years when he played for Cincinnati. Now he is playing one more year where his career started, which is further away from his family, but I don't think they are going to have to purchase too many bus tickets to see him play.
Griffey is rich and can pretty much see his family any type he wants when he is not playing baseball...which will be after this year.
The Reds stunk, and Griffey was blamed. Not fair.
Do you know who should be blamed for the Reds stinking? The entire pitching staff and Jim Bowden. They both stunk almost the entire time Griffey was there. I wish Gregg would write a column hating on them. Instead he chooses Griffey in order to continue his tradition of hating athletes that seem pretty harmless to the general public.
I bet Gregg still burns ants with a magnifying glass just to watch them burn.
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.
Knowing what I know about Gregg, which is pretty much what he writes, he was probably very mean to Griffey. I know he wrote this column in 2007 where he pretty much writes very similar things about Griffey as he did here.
So he knew who I was every time I walked into the clubhouse.
Yeah, you were probably the white guy with the mohawk. Not hard to find in a major league clubhouse. Also, Gregg was probably trying his hardest to make people hate him. He may have been calling the player's mothers mean names or carrying around kittens and throwing them against the wall. When they would purr, he would probably look at them, yell in Chinese and stuff one in a locker. You just never know with this guy. I just feel like he is unpredictable.
He threw a water bottle at me one day, not playfully, when my back was turned. He missed. (Gold Glove my ass.)
I don't remember talking about how Griffey had the most accurate arm in the world, I do remember he was awarded a Gold Glove or two for his acrobatic catches. Maybe if Gregg had thrown the water bottle near the top of the wall, Griffey could have climbed the wall and caught it, then thrown it at Gregg...of course Griffey would have pulled a hamstring but my point still stands that he got Gold Gloves for his catches and range in CF mostly.
Regardless, he has a history of throwing stuff at Gregg Doyel...which may be why Gregg does not like him that much.
He and his stooge Adam Dunn snickered at me.
Then they would snap Gregg with a towel, give him a wedgie, and finally Brandon Phillips, Adam Dunn, and Aaron Harang gave Gregg a swirlie, while Ken Griffey Jr. was penning his autobiography, "Why I Hate My Entire Family and Want To Move to Seattle To Get the Hell Away From Them...Ouch My Hamstring."
And Griffey even would ask other reporters, friendlier reporters, what I wanted, what I was doing, why I was there.
It sounds to me like he hates you. Maybe he chose to play in Seattle instead of Cincinnati to get further away from you and his family understood this reasoning.
But when you're done with that, you silly little Griffey fanboy, answer me a question:
Riddle me this Doyel: Why do you love to be hated?
If Junior is all about his family, as he has said for years, why did he pick Seattle over Atlanta?
These are two mutually exclusive issues. Griffey can be all about his family and he still want to play the last year of his major league career in Seattle. He chose Seattle because he could be an everyday DH, did not have to learn a new position in the field, and because of his history in that city. Griffey is probably going to retire after this year and he will be with his family from that point until his death, I think the family will be able to suffer without his absence for one more year. Again, if Griffey really wanted to be close to his family he would sign with Florida or Tampa Bay and not the Atlanta Braves.
First, Gregg has unnecessary hate against Marvin Harrison for being a fraud and now he thinks Ken Griffey Jr. is all about wanting to get away from his family.
I wish Bill Simmons still worked on Fridays and then my fragile eyes would not be subjected to Gregg's hate.
Showing posts with label ken griffey jr. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ken griffey jr. Show all posts
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