This blog has moved! Yes, already!
As of Thursday, Feb. 12, this little blog has relocated to a new home on AJC.com. It’s the same newspaper, the same Web site and the same writer (feel free to groan) — there’s just a new URL.
New features: Bigger type, more graphics, comments that load 10 times faster and a larger and more recent photo that makes me look pretty doggone old. I think you’ll like it (the blog, not the photo). But I am, as we know too well, often wrong.
Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2009 > February > 17
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
He’s not the Griffey of old; he’s an older Griffey
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lake Buena Vista, Fla. — Just so nobody accuses me of a hidden agenda - and we’ll deal in depth with agendas shortly - let me say I’m pessimistic. I understand why it makes sense for the Braves to want Ken Griffey Jr., and I understand why he’d want to be a Brave. But not every marriage ends happily. The best intentions can, and often do, go wrong.
I worry that we in Atlanta will want Griffey to be the ebullient Junior of 1990s, and the cold truth is that he hasn’t been that guy for nearly a decade. He has been hurt and his bat has slowed and he’s no longer an All-Star center fielder or a center fielder at all. As of Valentine’s Day, this Griffey was a 600-homer man who didn’t have a job, and of his 611 home runs 70 percent were struck before 2002.
I know, I know. The Braves aren’t asking Griffey to save them. They only want him to split time in left field with Matt Diaz, who was a 17th-round draft choice and who, to this day, considers himself lucky to be a big-leaguer. But I worry the infusion of any Hall-of-Famer-to-be would alter the dynamics of a clubhouse and therefore a team. I worry that Griffey’s presence would be surplus to his job requirements.
To read the rest of this item, please see my new little blog on AJC.com.
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