When something as special as Ken Griffey Jr.’s 2009 season happens, especially the postgame spew of emotions last Sunday when teammates carried him off the field, two things come to mind.
n Wouldn’t it be great if Griffey can do this all over again in 2010 and be part of a team that truly competes for a playoff berth?
n Just let this be the lasting memory because nothing will match the love Griffey gave and received this year.
It’s true that nothing else will be like this year, when Griffey reconnected a much-changed franchise with the best years of its past. But enough about nostalgia; the Mariners will need Griffey back in 2010. They’ll need his clubhouse presence and, given the right hitters around him, his bat in the lineup even after a .214 average this season.
Who’s to say Griffey can’t improve on his production next year? He’ll have a full offseason to strengthen a left knee that hampered his swing, which he didn’t have a great opportunity to do last year after surgery in October to repair a partially torn cartilage and meniscus.
But even if he’s the same Griffey who hit 19 homers, drove in 57 runs and led the team with 63 walks, the Mariners should be willing to take that because there’s much more to his impact than what he does on the field.
This year, Griffey and veteran DH Mike Sweeney turned a clubhouse that nobody really enjoyed in 2008 into a place nobody wanted to leave in 2009. He showed young players how to behave like professionals; he made everyone, including rookie manager Don Wakamatsu, feel at-ease; and he helped take the attention, and expectations, off such players as Adrian Beltre and Russell Branyan.
“What he did in that clubhouse, and what he did with his presence, I think goes beyond what any of us expected,” general manager Jack Zduriencik said. “All of you that have been around Kenny for years and know him a lot better than I did can see how important he was and how he relished this opportunity to give back to an organization that he cut his teeth on, back to a community that he loves and back to baseball. I tip my hat to the effort he gave to us on and off the field this year.”
Does that mean Zduriencik wants him back? He and Wakamatsu have wisely avoided the question because it’s way too soon to know how next year’s roster will come together and what role Griffey might have in it.
But even if the front office boosts the talent on the field, the personality in the clubhouse can’t disappear. Remember, it was barely a year ago when a lot of us saw the Mariners as a division contender only to have the season crumble into a pile of losses and personality conflicts. Take Griffey and Sweeney out of this year’s clubhouse and things would have been awfully quiet. And who knows how this team would have reacted to their stretch of losses in May without the veterans to keep them grounded?
Griffey is in no position to demand a certain amount of playing time, and he won’t. His role and his pay, even if they’re diminished significantly from this year, won’t determine whether or not he returns. The key will be whether the Mariners and Griffey’s family want him to play another year.
Griffey, saying last week that there’s no reason besides family for him not to play another year, noted that his 17-year-old son Trey enjoyed the time he spent with Dad during this season.
If that’s the case, it will be the Mariners’ call to make.
The missing man
Not to make more of this than there was, but while the Mariners were celebrating a year of togetherness with their postgame parade lap last Sunday, one of them wasn’t there.
Injured pitcher Erik Bedard was back home in Canada, having stayed there after the Mariners’ final road trip instead of returning for the last homestand. No huge deal there, because players have been known to leave their teams in such circumstances.
But on this team, his absence stood out.
Every other Mariner was on the field honoring their fans and each other after Sunday’s game. That included outfielder Endy Chavez, who suffered a major knee injury and won’t play until midseason next year at the earliest. Chavez had a knee specialist waiting to work with him near his home in Venezuela, but he remained with the Mariners and was on the field with a smile on his face after last Sunday’s game.
It makes you wonder if we’ll ever see Bedard, signed through the end of this season, wear a Mariners uniform again. Or if he cares to wear it again.
Read Kirby Arnold’s blog on the Mariners at www.heraldnet.com/marinersblog
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