Friday, July 13, 2001
Seattle GM opens old wounds for Griffey
Baseball Weekly
Seattle general manager Pat Gillick infuriated Ken Griffey Jr. last week when he ripped Junior and former Mariners teammate Alex Rodriguez.
Gillick was quoted as saying: “I think the real reason they both left us is that they were psyched out by (Safeco Field). I think they wanted to win but had personal goals they didn't think they could achieve in the new park.”
Said Griffey: “I wish he would learn to shut up and let it die. He's like a senile old man. A year and a half later, he's still bringing it up.”
"This guy sees me for only an hour (in their only face-to-face meeting), but yet he knows me so well. Realistically, you think he's upset I'm not there?
“Why can't he let it go?”
Griffey also can't under stand why there's this perverse pleasure about the struggles he and Rodriguez are enduring.
There were no guarantees when Griffey went to the Reds and Rodriguez signed with the Texas Rangers. No one ever promised a playoff berth. It only proved once again that one player cannot carry a team.
“I've talked to Alex a couple of times,” Griffey said, “and it seems like that's what drives sports shows, sports talk radio, and gets blown out of proportion in the newspapers. Everything in sports is, "What have you done for me now?' Not, what you have done the last 11 years. Not the last six years. But what has the person done for me?
“People don't want to remember what Alex and I did for that organization. Hopefully, when I finally get back there, people will remember.”
Those memories and emotions will be prodded much sooner than folks in Seattle realize.
The 2002 schedule has the National League Central Division playing the AL West in interleague play.
Guess where the Reds will be playing three games next summer?
Yep, at Safeco Field.
“I can't wait,” Griffey said.
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Seattle GM opens old wounds for Griffey