Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Griffey becomes 6th to reach 600 homer milestone

MIAMI - Ken Griffey Jr. completed his perfect power stroke and admired the arc of his 600th homer before rounding the bases. Who could blame him for pausing to watch this home run? The journey to the milestone took a lot longer than anyone expected.

Griffey became the sixth player sixth player in history to reach 600 homers with a drive off Mark Hendrickson in the first inning of the Cincinnati Reds’ 9-4 victory over the Florida Marlins. Griffey joined Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays and Sammy Sosa as the only players to reach the mark.

“I don’t think I touched any of the bases. I sort of floated around,” Griffey said.

The 38-year-old Griffey homered with Jerry Hairston on third and one out. The left-handed slugger launched a 3-1 pitch 413 feet into the right-field seats.

Griffey received a standing ovation from the crowd of 16,003 and responded by coming out of the Reds dugout and waving his helmet to the fans. His 14-year-old son, Trey, joined the players in offering congratulations in the dugout.

Dusty Baker has managed the last three players to achieve the milestone: Bonds in San Francisco, Sosa in Chicago and now Griffey. He was there for Bonds’ 600th, on Aug. 9, 2002.

“It’s awesome every time you see a milestone like that,” Baker said. “It doesn’t take away from the others. It adds to it.”

Controversy ensued in the stands following the home run. Justin Kimball, a 25-year-old from Miami, said he caught the home run ball, put it in a wool cap and then had the hat ripped from his hands. Kimball said someone ran off with the ball.

However, the Florida Marlins announced Major League Baseball had authenticated the home run ball for a middle-aged male fan who would only give his first name as Joe.

Paul Bako had his first career multihomer game—three-run and two-run shots—and Brandon Phillips added a solo homer in support of Edinson Volquez (9-2), who gave up three runs in six innings.

Griffey finished 1-for-4 with a strikeout and an intentional walk. He exited in the middle of the eighth.

Bako said he was not bothered that his performance was overshadowed by Griffey.

“That’s fine with me man,” Bako said. “I was really happy to be here and see it, and I’m proud to be his teammate and to get to enjoy it.”

Hairston left the game in the middle of the first breaking his left thumb when stealing second. He said X-rays showed a non-displaced fracture and could miss two to four weeks.

Hendrickson (7-4) allowed six runs—five earned—and five hits in 2 1-3 innings. Mike Jacobs homered for the Marlins.

“I grew up watching him; I know what he did for baseball in Seattle,” Hendrickson said. “It’s just one of those things where I’m going to pitch to these guys and don’t back down from it. You’re going to give up home runs, but it came in a game where I gave up a couple others.”

Still, the game will be remembered for Griffey’s historic homer.

After showering and dressing quickly, Griffey faced the media with “72 text messages and 18 phone calls” on his cell phone. He mentioned he had received recent phone calls from Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, who offered encouragement.

“My father hit 152 home runs, and that’s who I wanted to be like,” said Griffey, whose father also played for the Reds.

Griffey, one of baseball’s most prolific sluggers before injuries began to take their toll, started the season with 593 home runs.

It took 216 at-bats to make history—his previous homer came May 31.

Griffey hit No. 597 on April 23 at Great American Ball Park, then went 90 at-bats—the second-longest drought of his career—before connecting again in San Diego on May 22.

He went another 29 at-bats, and even got a day off during the week to work on his swing, before hitting No. 599. Griffey went 17 at-bats between that homer and No. 600.

“I’ve been swinging the bat a lot better the last 10 days or so,” Griffey said. “I was able to get the ball in the air. I wasn’t beating the ball into the ground like I had been.”

Like his 400th and 500th, this home run came on the road.

Unlike Bonds and Sosa, Griffey has stayed clear of questions about whether he came by all of his homers legitimately. His name has never come up in baseball’s steroids scandal. Unlike Sosa, he’s never been caught using a doctored bat.

Although Junior is linked numerically with Hammerin’ Hank and the Babe, he has never been defined by the home run.

His game is so well-rounded that he was voted an All-Century outfielder with Seattle before his 30th birthday. By then, his backward cap and light-up smile were the face of baseball.

His statistics were setting the pace, too. When Griffey was traded to his hometown team before the 2000 season, he was significantly ahead of Aaron’s record home run pace.

It seemed like a sure bet that when his nine-year, $116.5 million contract was wrapping up this year, he’d be the next home run king, or close to it. Then, the city would have two of its own atop baseball’s revered lists—Pete Rose as the hits king, Junior as the home run king.

It hasn’t turned out that way.

Griffey hit 40 homers in his first season with the Reds, when he became the youngest to reach 400 career. Then came a succession of major injuries—torn hamstrings, torn patella tendon, separated shoulder, torn ankle—that knocked him way off Aaron’s pace.

Nearly knocked him off the map, too.

The one-time superstar got booed in his hometown and overlooked in conversation about the game’s best players. It took him more than four years to get to homer No. 500 in 2004.

It seemed he might never make it to 600.

A year later, he was back in the swing.

Griffey hit 35 homers in 2005, winning the comeback player award. He followed it with 27 homers in 2006.

Last season, he played in 144 games—his most since 2000—and hit 30 homers, leaving him seven shy of No. 600. The Reds erected a countdown board at Great American Ball Park, and featured him on the cover of the 2008 media guide.

Griffey was the youngest player in the majors—still only 19—on April 10, 1989, when he homered off the Chicago White Sox’s Eric King on the first pitch he saw at Seattle’s Kingdome.

Homer No. 36 was one of his most satisfying. It came one batter after his father, Ken Sr., homered off California’s Kirk McCaskill on Sept. 14, 1990, an unprecedented father-and-son moment in the majors.

Even now, Griffey says those two seasons he spent playing with his father in Seattle were the best times of his career. And he has suggested that he would like to finish his career back there.

(AP)