Upon reading this past week about baseball legend Ken Griffey, Jr.’s decision to retire, after an illustrious 22 year hall-of-fame-bound career, I couldn’t help but reflect upon one memorable day, more than a decade ago, when I had the extraordinary opportunity to meet, in fact spend the day with, and photograph Ken.
Let’s start with a little historical background*. It was December 1999, Griffey had been playing for the Seattle Mariners for the previous ten years, having joined them at the age of 19, joining a franchise that had not had a single winning season since it began play in 1977. An instant sensation, Griffey not only led the Mariners to their first playoff appearance by 1995 (and two years later being named the
American League most valuable player-indeed two years in a row), but he quickly had a candy bar named after him. “Ken’s enduring legacy will be as the ballplayer most responsible for keeping Major League Baseball here in Seattle…”, said Howard Lincoln, the Mariners’ chief executive.
By the late ’90’s, however, as weak pitching and other factors doomed the efforts of the Mariners, Griffey asked to be traded. The reported original list of teams he was willing to talk to included Cincinnati, where he spent his formative years as his dad Ken, Sr. starred for the Reds’ championship teams in the 1970’s, Atlanta, Houston and Cleveland. Atlanta and Houston were never serious players, and while negotiations with the Reds appeared to break down, the rumor mill was spreading that the Mets had become a real contender to land Griffey.
And as the decision deadline neared, I found myself in the midst of my own little Griffey deal making. With thanks to my Connecticut agent at the time, the incomparable John Brewster, I had been commissioned to fly to Orlando for an advertising shoot, featuring none other than Jr. himself. Hitting the news stand before catching our flight, I picked up a copy of that day’s New York Post for a little quick read. It was Sunday December 12th, the shoot scheduled for Monday morning in a studio near Ken’s Orlando home. The headline on the front page of the Post was typical for the tabloid, “Dead Kids Learning: Bombshell report: Schools scammed millions with phantom students”. At the very top of that day’s paper: “Headway in Transit Talks”, “Dandy Brande: Hef’s Newest Bunny”, and finally “Mets Back in Griffey Chase”. Flipping that day’s paper over to the back cover and “Sports Sunday”, the headline read: “Back in the Hunt: Mets zero in on Griffey after Reds drop out chase”.
It was in that context that we showed up at the studio on Monday morning. And while I’ll deny in a court of law (at least if surrounded by my Worcester “boys”) that I was ever anything but a life-long Red Sox fan, having spent so many years living and working in NY, you could taste the excitement and anticipation in the air.
The rest of the story, of course, has been also well-documented, the headline on Monday morning’s Post, which we already had a copy of before Griffey showed up that day, was “Grif Just Says No To Mets-Agent: It’s Either M’s or Cincy for Junior”, the lead sports story going on to say, “Ken Griffey, Jr. will not be a Met. He will be traded to the Reds or play out his contract in 2000 as a Mariner, his agent, Brian Goldberg, vowed yesterday.”
Showing nothing but characteristic total cool throughout the day, seemingly unfazed by the media storm that surrounded his every move, Ken arrived on time for our photo session, joked with all of us about what was happening around him, stood for hours on end in various product endorsement poses, always the consummate professional. Have successfully completed our day’s assignment, I fortunately remembered John Brewster’s parting words of wisdom to me, to make sure to ask Ken to sit for a quick black and white portrait at the end of the session, no product endorsement, no baseball uniform, just Ken, the results of which I present to you above.
An addendum to the story: our photo stylist had with her two baseball caps for Ken to wear that day, one for the Reds, one for the Mets, all depending upon which way the wind was to blow that memorable day in December.
* Historical context courtesy of the New York Post.
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