Ken Griffey, Jr., Is Seattle's Again

Why should you care? Because we don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that you, dear reader, might be living in another place if not for the fawning publicity our little burg received in the early 1990s: The Cobain/Griffey Era.

Pre-Cobain/Griffey, Seattle's closest connection to a cultural icon was our tenuous claim on Jimi Hendrix. But Hendrix was a Londoner when he achieved his fame; he'd left Seattle when he was 18 and never lived here again. If Jimi Hendrix is a Seattle celebrity, then Dan Savage is a Chicago one.

And back then we didn't even have anyone as famous as Savage. The city's best-known newspaper columnist, Emmett Watson, was insightful and empathetic but deeply provincial, a trait that bedevils local writers still. A nationally-syndicated Emmett Watson column would've been as successful as a nationally-broadcast Almost Live. (Oh, right.)

Point being, as no one in Seattle was doing anything that was worth a damn to the rest of the world, the rest of the world didn't give a damn about us--and many people liked it that way. Cobain and Griffey changed that forever. Through them, "Seattle" was on the covers of Rolling Stone and Sports Illustrated. And we less-provincial Gen Xers liked the attention.

This Seattlest was born and reared in the lesser Seattle, the pre-Cobain/Griffey Seattle. Growing up, we'd be jazzed just to see the Mariners on national TV--even if the result was civic embarrassment.

But by the time we went away to college in 1994, being from the Northwest was cool. People would ask us where we were from; when we'd offer "Seattle," they--people from places like New York City! and D.C.! and Boston!--would say, "Wow!" To us! With our floppy hair, tortoise-shell glasses, and affinity for sports-themed apparel, it wasn't us that was wowing them. It was the celebrities. We thought: "Thanks Ken! Thanks Kurt!"

Cobain's resonance for the international music scene will have to be left for another writer--the auditory arts are not our forte (see "affinity for sports-themed apparel," above).

Griffey we can talk about.

George Kenneth Griffey, Jr., born November 21, 1969, in Donora, Pennsylvania, graduate of Cincinnati's Moeller High School, picked by the Mariners with the #1 overall selection in the 1987 draft (that's all from memory, by the way), was, outside of Michael Jordan, the most popular American athlete of the 1990s.

Griffey won the Mariners starting center field job as a 19-year-old. As if he came with a script, Griffey doubled in his first major league at-bat; homered in his first at-bat in the Kingdome. He was the first Mariner elected to start in baseball's All-Star Game. Nike built advertising campaigns around him, just like they did for Jordan. Griffey guest-starred in episodes of The Simpsons and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. He was, in the parlance of the time, def.

If Griffey was wildly popular throughout the United States, you can imagine his approval rating here. The sports fan who came of age in the Pacific Northwest in the 1990s did it idolizing Griffey--from the pre-teen Kingdome bleacher girls who screamed his name in hopes that he'd turn and wave to them, to the nerdy, baseball-obsessed ninth-graders who updated Griffey's batting average daily on the chalkboard of their first-period math class. (Who, us? Noooo.)

By the time Griffey left Seattle in 2000, after 11 seasons as a Mariner, the fans who had followed him from his rookie year were themselves grown. Griffey has spent the '00s out of the national spotlight--beset by injury, overshadowed by the gaudy stats of his chemically-enhanced peers, and playing for non-contending Cincinnati. But, in Seattle at least, he has not been forgotten.

Sports are all about recapturing lost youth, so Griffey's return now, when we fans who loved him are coping with mortgages, marriages, and that gooey stuff where our abs used to be, will have that much more emotional impact than it would've even five years ago.

Man, are we pumped.

Most of us are, anyway. Not every Griffey fan loves the idea. Rational types argue that paying several million dollars to a 39-year-old is a waste of money for a team that's not likely to win many games. That the M's should be auditioning their future stars instead. That the M's signing of Griffey is borne of nostalgia, not logic.

These people are absolutely right, and we commend them for their ability to make decisions based on the clear-minded assessment of pertinent data. We wish they ran our nation's banks. We're glad they don't run our city's baseball team.

We know Griffey's not the same hitter he was in the '90s. But the hitter he is reminds us enough of the hitter he was that we don't care. And since the team likely isn't going to win anyway, we're ok with picking emotion over logic. Provided Griffey stays healthy (and it is Providence we'll rely on; he hasn't had an injury-free season since 1999), all 162 Mariner games, no matter how demoralizing from a run-differential perspective, will have at least four unmissable, thrilling moments: Griffey's times at bat.

To return to our earlier analogy: If Kurt Cobain could come back for a summer of Nirvana concerts, but couldn't nail those near-falsetto shrieks like he used to, would his fans go? We're thinking they would.

Cobain and Griffey share another similarity, besides being the idols of a generation of Seattleites: Both attempted suicide.

Griffey's attempt at age 17--he swallowed 277 aspirin after an argument with his dad--was, obviously, unsuccessful.

Cobain's was not, so his hometown fans will never again get the chance to see him perform.

Griffey's fans have already had that experience, briefly--he returned last year for a weekend as a Cincinnati Red. When M's P.A. voice Tom Hutyler introduced him, Griffey received a standing ovation that went on in waves for a dozen minutes, the loudest and longest applause ever heard in Seattle.

The loudest and longest applause ever heard in Seattle, that is, until April 14th, 2009--Opening Day at Safeco Field.

Say it with me, M's fans: "Now batting, Ken Grrrriffey, Juuuuuuunior!"