Among the many highlights of "Junior," MLB Network's documentary on show-stopping Hall of Fame outfielder Ken Griffey Jr., was a story he told about a time he visited his father when Ken Sr. was playing in pinstripes at Yankee Stadium.
In short, Griffey Jr. had been told by a stadium employee that he couldn't be in the dugout or on the field, as George Steinbrenner didn't want anyone out of place there, and so his father told him to go back to his locker.
"But before you go," Griffey Sr. told his son, "look at third base."
It was there that Griffey Jr. saw one of Graig Nettles' sons at third base, which apparently wasn't a problem despite the instruction the security guard had just given.
“At that time my dad was 38 years old, and he was like, ‘I ain’t fighting this no more. I got someone a little younger, and a little better,’ ” Griffey Jr. explained. “There are certain things that a dad drills into you as a kid that just stick with you. That was one of them, to beat the Yankees.”
On Wednesday's broadcast of the Mariners-Dodgers game, which the Mariners surprisingly won 6-4, the Kid joined the broadcasting crew and reaffirmed the sentiment that he shared during the documentary.
"(Melissa and I) were talking about using the word "hate," and she was like, 'I don't like the word "hate," ' " Griffey Jr. said (via Cespedes Family BBQ). "And I go, 'well I hate the Yankees.' And she starts laughing, she goes, 'no, just use the word "dislike." '
"... And I don't hate the Yankees... I respect what they've done, you know, I respect the guys that played for them. It's just that age 12 and 13, the things that were done to me, didn't scar me, but (they) molded me into making sure when I played certain teams that they got everything."
And everything is what the Yankees got from Griffey Jr. In the decade of the 1990s, Griffey Jr. had the third-highest OPS of any player in Major League Baseball against the Yankees (min. 200 at bats), with a slash line of .313/.393/.589 and 28 home runs in just over 400 at bats.
Though he's not the "Yankee Killer" we went with in our list of every team's toughest achilles heel -- that honor belonged to Geronimo Berroa (60 games, 244 plate appearances, 67 hits, 14 HR, 44 RBI, .328/.430/.598, 1.028 OPS) -- he was always a formidable foe and had reason to up his game just a notch against the Bronx Bombers.
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