Junior's Immortality

I couldn't let this milestone go by without throwing in my worthless opinion. In case you missed it, and if you did, you probably weren't alone, Ken Griffey Jr. hit career home run number 600 earlier this week. In so doing, he becomes only the sixth player in history to reach that mark, joining Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Barry Bonds, and Sammy Sosa. He'll most likely pass Slammin' Sammy (609) some time this season. It was a shame that he had to do it in Dolphin Stadium in front of the meager Florida Marlin crowd of 16,000. 

Junior has easily earned his ticket to the Hall of Fame. Sure, his stats are impressive, but what really sticks out in my mind when thinking about him is the lack of, well, asterisks. 

Remember when sports stars were immortal? Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Hank Aaron, Ty Cobb, Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente... They used to be larger than life, but in a good, awe-inspiring way. 

Lately we've had the likes of Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, and Robert Clemens break records and reach milestones. But, they were unable arrive at the immortal status of past baseball deity because of their obvious mortality. Relying on artificial substances to increase your performance is proof of imperfection and flaws, the very essence of mortality. 

Maybe the difference is the difference in media coverage between then and now. Professional athletes are under a microscope -- especially those of all-star caliber.  Socially speaking, the country seems less and less trusting, and baseball and its recent plague of performance enhancing drugs hasn't proved itself worthy of trust for some time. It seems like every modern-day milestone is viewed with a hardy amount of skepticism. 

And now there's Junior hitting his 600th homerun, and the general consensus is that he has done so without any pharmaceutical assistance (another than a large supply of Advil, speaking from limited experience). It's refreshing. 

But, I was wrong when I said there were no asterisks. The asterisk next to Griffey's name doesn't allude to a possibility that he cheated during his career. In fact, it's not negative at all. His asterisk says, sure, he was great -- one of the greatest -- but how good could he have been?

Junior's career numbers could be even more amazing if he would have been able stay healthy. Over his 19 year career, he's averaged 125 games a season, which means he missed 475 games. If you figure an average of 3.5 at-bats per game, that's over 1660 at-bats. 475 games is nearly three full seasons. The "Super Griffey" stats, based on his career output and an Iron Man run of health, are really impressive. But the fact he's been as good as he has been, and done so with nothing more than God-given talent and hard work, should place him among the immortal Titans of baseball's past.