With Ken Griffey, Jr. having hit his 499th career home run on Sunday, I have no choice but to remember the Junior I knew. As a thirteen-year-old Yankees fan I was beginning my obsession for the game at the same time that Griffey was at the pinnacle of his career. He was dominant, fan-friendly, and most of all Yankees fans hated him. That wasn’t just caused by his aptitude for breaking the Yankees (or in that case any team’s) back, but a childhood incident when he was asked to leave the field by the Boss George Steinbrenner himself during his father’s tenure with the club. Despite all this, however, I today found myself being as much a supporter of Griffey as one of the players on my favorite club.
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