USA TODAY International Edition
Griffey’s star shined far beyond baseball
Easy smile, success made ‘ The Kid’ a pop icon
Kevin Falls is a San CINCINNATI Francisco Giants fan, so when he was writing the movie Summer
Catch and ( spoiler alert) it came to the end when his main character, Ryan Dunne, makes the big leagues and is facing his first big test, Falls wanted that player to be Barry Bonds. He got Ken Griffey Jr. instead. In the story, the big- league star homers off Dunne, showing just how far the protagonist of the story still has to go despite making the big leagues.
In the moment, the viewer is supposed to be rooting for Dunne but be OK with him giving up a home run. It’s a tricky part, something that requires a positive view of the player who takes Dunne deep.
Director Mike Tollin knew Bonds was the wrong player. It had to be Griffey.
In the final version of the film, we see Dunne pitching for the Phillies with Griffey at the plate at Cinergy Field. On his first pitch, Dunne shakes off his catcher before throwing the pitch. Instead of the hero ending for Dunne, we see Griffey’s sweet swing and a home run to rightcenter field. As Griffey rounds the bases, he’s smiling and laughing at the rookie. As hard as it is imagining Bonds smiling on the field, it’s even tougher to imagine the reaction of Dunne on the mound and his friends and family in a faraway sports bar, as all shake it off and laugh.
“It was showing he had a long way to go and there’s no shame in giving up a home run to Ken Griffey,” Falls said recently while promoting his new baseball- centric TV show, Pitch.
Summer Catch was released in 2001, and it would have come out during Bonds’ pursuit of the season home run record. But Falls has to admit that not only did Tollin have the perfect choice in casting, Griffey also was really the only choice.
Griffey, who will be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum on Sunday, was the most famous baseball player in the world and, to this day, he might still be.
Walk into a sporting goods store, and there might be bats and gloves with other players’ names on them or jerseys of current players, but there’s only one set of baseball cleats or bag or pants that have a specific player’s logo on them — and it’s the Swingman logo of Griffey.
Swingman is Nike’s baseball version of Michael Jordan’s Jumpman logo, a pose so iconic that it doesn’t need words to convey the meaning. It shows the end of Griffey’s iconic swing, the vapor trail of the bat through the hitting zone and, most important, the backward cap.
Griffey, with the backward cap, was baseball’s last pop culture icon, the last player who even non- baseball fans knew by sight. He dominated commercials, video games and baseball shoes and was the most popular player in the game and the only choice when baseball was trying to match the star power of basketball’s Jordan. In the 1993 All- Star Game in Baltimore, it was Jordan who was seen chasing down Griffey for an autograph.
Griffey was the next in the line of Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle — the bigger-than- life, all- American baseball player for which fans of every team in baseball rooted.
When walking through the Grand Hall of the Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego at the All-Star Game availability this month, Griffey’s name came up often, even without prompting — whether it was the Toronto Blue Jays’ Josh Donaldson talking about playing Major League Baseball featuring Ken Griffey Jr. on Nintendo 64 or Bryce Harper breaking down Griffey’s perfect swing — it was as if he was still one of the game’s biggest stars, even six years after his last game.
“I don’t think there will ever be another Ken Griffey Jr., somebody that comes into the game and just changes it,” said Harper, perhaps the most visible player in the game today. “He changed it for the better. Every single day he played, he was smiling, laughing, enjoying the game — the hat backwards, going onto the field and doing everything possible to have fun and be one of the best players out there.”
Griffey was “The Kid,” and that joyful presence, the backward hat and the incomparable talent were what made him the game’s biggest star.
Any child of the 1990s interested in the game played his series of video games for Nintendo or wore his shoes or wanted the 1989 Upper Deck rookie card or at least imitated his swing in games involving a Wiffle ball.
Even those who didn’t follow baseball knew of his candy bar, commercials or appearances in movies and TV.
Not only was he in Summer Catch, he also was in Little Big League. Griffey was on The Fresh Prince of Bel- Air and was a bigger star than Will Smith. He was on The Simpsons, the TV version of Harry and the Hendersons and Arli$$ and even at MTV’s spring break. He rapped ( The Way I Swing).
Then there were the commercials: Nike, Foot Locker, Pepsi, Nintendo. Even for a hitter, he was a heck of a pitcher when it came to selling products.
“He was the only guy I looked up to, he was the guy I wanted to be like, model my game after,” Pittsburgh Pirates center fielder Andrew McCutchen said. “I was right- handed trying to hit like him. He was left- handed. He was just that guy I just marveled at. Every time I’d see him on TV and making a crazy catch or a long homer, I’d just be glued to the TV. He was definitely somebody I grew up watching and definitely I still, to this day, look up to and respect.”