Why 19-year-old Ken Griffey Jr. is ready to save the Mariners right now (SN Archive — 1989)

This article, "Clock Strikes Griffey Time" by Jim Street, originally appeared as the cover story in the April 10, 1989 issue of The Sporting News. 

SEATTLE - A 19-year-old center fielder with major league bloodlines and an abundance of talent threw the Seattle Mariners' short-range plans off course this spring.

Ken Griffey Jr. was so far ahead of schedule that the Mariners had to find a place for him in their lineup at least one year sooner than expected. When Griffey reported to training camp in Tempe, Ariz., barely three months after his 19th birthday, he was given only an outside chance, at best, of earning a spot on the 24-man roster for the Mariners' season opener.

Griffey wanted to make the major league roster, but he wanted to make it more for his father — Ken Griffey Sr. of the Cincinnati Reds — than for himself. “My dad said this probably is going to be his last season and he wants us to be the first father-son combination to play in the big leagues at the same time,” young Griffey said at the beginning of spring training. “That would make him happy.”

When the Mariners announced March 29 that Ken Jr. would be their starting center fielder against the Oakland A's in the Kingdome on April 3 and Ken Sr. signed a one-year, $320,000 contract with the Reds the following day, there were smiles all around the country.

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Fathers and sons have been in spring training at the same time, but never in the regular season.

In the spring of 1986, for example, Hal McRae — then entering his final full season as a designated hitter for the Kansas City Royals — and his son, Brian, a shortstop who had been drafted by the Royals a year earlier, made history when they became the first father-son combination as teammates in a major league camp. But Brian was demoted quickly and the McRaes never played together in the majors.

Happiness, the word mentioned by young Griffey, is something foreign to the Mariners, who have had losing records in each of their 12 seasons. The team was badly in need of a marquee player and an infusion of new blood, but Griffey, did not appear to be their man when spring training began.

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ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: APRIL 10, 1989

• Heisman winner Barry Sanders makes NFL Draft announcement
• Ken Griffey Sr.: 'I never thought about me still playing'
• Weighing the somber effects of the Pete Rose scandal
• Bobby Knight wants the NCAA tournament to shrink to 32 teams
• Pat Summit's seniors deliver again for Tennessee

The organization's thinking was that Griffey would start the season at Williamsport (Eastern) or Calgary (Pacific Coast). Griffey had never played above Double A — and he had appeared in only 17 games at that level. Everyone at the Mariners' camp could tell just by watching Griffey in action that major league stardom was on the horizon.

At the same time, Manager Jim Lefebvre and his coaches were concerned that rushing Griffey to the big leagues might be disastrous. The franchise had already had its share of disasters and no one wanted to be responsible if Griffey went into a slump and his confidence fell to the point that he could never recover.

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“If he's going to break (camp) with us,” Lefebvre said midway through spring training, “he is going to play. He's not going to sit around. When he becomes part of our lineup, I want him to be there for 20 years. If we rush him, it could set him back a couple of years.”

But Griffey rushed himself into the picture and the outlook for the Mariners' outfield changed almost overnight. In his pre-spring training prospectus, Lefebvre didn't even mention Griffey's name among those battling for outfield positions. By the time the Cactus League schedule began, Griffey's status already was on the rise. And there was no stopping him.

Lefebvre had decided to play the youngster almost every game. “I want to take a good look at him,” he said. “We'll see how it goes.”

It went better than anyone expected. Even Griffey.

“I didn't expect to be playing this well,” he said when he was midway through a 15-game hitting streak that was the .longest in the Mariners' history for spring training. And when the Cactus League pitching got better, so did Griffey's hitting. Skeptics were waiting for him to be overmatched, but he went through a three-week stretch in which he never went more than four at-bats without a hit.

Oh, Griffey incurred a few bumps along the road. Take, for example, his first day in camp.

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While Griffey was playing catch, a baseball glanced off the tip of his glove and caromed flush into his right eye. That was the end of that day's workout.  “They told me he could hit, he could run and he could throw,” Lefebvre, the first-year manager of the Mariners, said with a laugh, “but no one told me he couldn't play catch.”

Can he hit? Besides the 15-game streak, Griffey set M's spring records with 32 hits, 49 total bases and 20 runs batted in. He batted .360.

Lefebvre had played the kid along March 29. Just as Griffey was convinced he was going to the minors, Lefebvre said, “Congratulations, you're my center fielder.”  

“My heart started ticking again,” Griffey said.

Lefebvre said Griffey simply was the best player for the position. “I like him. I like him a lot,” veteran outfielder Jeffrey Leonard said. “I think he's farther along offensively than defensively. Sure, he's young, but he kept doing things that other people weren't doing. The only thing we don't know about him is how he will face adversity. By having a good spring, he's trained his body and his mind, but one thing you don't train when you're doing well is to train yourself for adversity — that eight- to nine-game slump. It's going to come, so we have to wait and see how he handles it.”

Leonard added, “I can help him through the rough times if he wants me to help him.” Then, he laughed and said, “If he doesn't, I'll coldcock him.”

Do we have a real-life Roy Hobbs on our hands here? “He's a natural,” Mariners batting coach Gene Clines said, marveling at Griffey's ability. “You sit back and watch this kid and he shows you what everybody is talking about. He can do it all.”

Can he run? When Griffey gets his 6-3, 195-pound body at full throttle, he runs like a deer. Doubles for some players become triples for Griffey. The only negative thing the Mariners noticed was that Griffey, at times, failed to run hard to first base after stroking a routine ground ball. Lefebvre has talked to the youngster about that.

I can help him through the rough times if he wants me to help him. If he doesn't, I'll coldcock him.

— Mariners outfielder Jeffrey Leonard

Can he throw? Ask the San Francisco Giants' Brett Butler, who is no leadfoot. Butler, trying to advance from first to third on a single to center in a game in Arizona, was gunned down by Griffey on a play that wasn't really that close. The throw from center never touched the ground. And Griffey covers so much ground in center field that tough plays seem to become routinely easy ones.

Having been born into a baseball family, young Griffey was not awed by the major league surroundings. “Man, this is my 12th spring training camp,” he was quoted as saying. “That's 10 with my dad and two on my own.”

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Lefebvre said, “He doesn't handle himself like a 19-year-old. He's been around major league ball players all his life.” Lefebvre, who once spent half a year as a batboy for the Los Angeles Dodgers before entering baseball himself, said that exposure to the big leagues was invaluable.

“You see these guys, talk to them, watch them and realize they are human beings just like you,” Lefebvre said. “We create images that major league ball players are bigger than life. Ken feels right at home.”

Griffey's growth came quickly. After being drafted No. 1 in the country out of Cincinnati's Moeller High School on June 2,1987, Griffey reported to Bellingham, Wash., to play for the Mariners' club in the short-season Northwest League. The 17-year-old phenom's first hit was a home run against Everett on June 17. He went on to hit three homers, drive in eight runs and steal four bases that week and was named the league's player of the week.

Despite crashing into the center field wall July 4 and suffering an injury to his right shoulder, Griffey came back to hit .453 from July 12 to August 13. He wound up sixth in the league with a .313 average and led the yearling Mariners with 14 home runs, 40 RBIs and 13 steals.

Jay Mariotti, then a sports columnist for the Cincinnati Post, visited Griffey in the summer of 1987, shortly after the youngster had survived his first 10-hour moonlight ride in the Pacific Northwest aboard the Bellingham team bus, a 1958 school bus without a bathroom.

“To be perfectly honest with you, it was a whole lot worse than I ever imagined,” Griffey told Mariotti. He said he survived by climbing into the overhead luggage compartment on the bus and going to sleep.

More than once, the homesick youngster who had received a $150,000 bonus from the Mariners was thinking of chucking his career. But phone calls to a girl friend back home in the Cincinnati suburb of West Chester, O., convinced him that he should stay on track.

Bellingham (pop. 46,380), about 90 miles north of Seattle and 20 miles south of the Canadian border, was culture shock for a black teenager from the big city. “Things are a little different here,” Griffey said. “It will take some getting used to for me. It's kind of weird around here.”

Griffey's first manager was Rick Sweet, who had been a catcher for Seattle, San Diego and the New York Mets in the major leagues. Sweet could see that Griffey had the tools to play center field for the Mariners, but he needed to mature. Even the 17-year-old Griffey admitted that. “I have to mature,” he said. “That's why I'm here.”

It was left to Sweet to explain what the youngster needed to learn. For instance, there was the matter of his mind wandering when he was on base. “He's been picked off twice already because he's been spectating,” Sweet said. “He's got to stay ahead mentally. You can't spectate in this game.”

After going to spring training as a non-roster invitee in 1988, Griffey was assigned to San Bernardino (California). He was such a hit in the Class-A circuit that San Bernardino held a “Ken Griffey Poster Night” and sold out the ball park. When Griffey would go to bat, the public address announcer would ask, “What time is it?” The crowd would respond, “Griffey Time.” Griffey hit .338, with 11 homers and 42 RBIs, for San Bernardino.

His career was put on hold for two weeks when he suffered an injured back while trying to make a diving catch in mid-July. But his back responded to treatment and he was promoted to Double A.

Griffey played out the “88 season with Vermont (Eastern), hitting .279 with two homers and 10 RBIs in 17 games. Because of the back injury, he was restricted to duties as a designated hitter.

Ken Griffey Sr. was playing for the Atlanta Braves when Ken Jr. was drafted. Before the youngster reported to Bellingham, he made a visit to the Braves' clubhouse in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

During his visit, three members of the '87 Braves made young Griffey the victim of an old clubhouse prank. Glenn Hubbard, Dion James and Gerald Perry tied Griffey's shoelaces together in what amounted to an initiation ritual. “But I got them back when they weren't looking,” Griffey said. “I tied their laces.” And what did the veterans do then? “They called me 'Rookie,'“ Griffey said.

Now, he's a major league rookie, and it's Griffey Time in Seattle.

There is only one aspect of Griffey's game that the Mariners haven't seen. The slump.

“I don't know if he understands what a slump is,” Lefebvre said. “I don't know if he's ever had one.”

Lefebvre also realizes that if Griffey gets off to a slow start this season, “People will say we made a mistake because he's not ready yet. That's wrong. I think he will handle a slump just fine.”

Griffey says he has been in slumps before and he doesn't let them get him down. “I remember my junior year in high school when I was hitting something like .193, but I came out of it,” he said. “You see, I don't have any confidence in myself. If something goes wrong, it doesn't hurt my confidence because I don't have any in the first place. I'm shaking every time I hit, but I've always been like that.”

For someone lacking self-confidence, he sure made believers out of a lot of people this spring.