Mariners Induct Junior

I know a blog or two has posted on the fact that the Seattle Mariners inducted Junior into their hall-of-fame Saturday. In honor of this I am going to show off my regional Junior related items until this weekend. This will be a cool chance to show off a few of the Junior items I have in my baseball collection.

(1991 Country Hearth Bread #15)

 

Sitting at home watching the ceremony I was bummed as the wife had discussed wanting to go to this very game. Sadly two things were working against us so we got to watch it on TV. After hearing about the crowd for this game I think I'm glad we watched from home.

According to the commentators when they arrived at 1:45 the crowd was already at a crazy level waiting to enter the stadium. If we had gone this would have been a disaster for us. I am one of those when we go to games arrive anywhere from 1 1/2 to 1 hour before the gates open. The commentators arrive two hours early so who knows when this line started. When we would have arrived my guess is parking was probably already getting tough to come by. Word was that it was so crazy the Mariners opened the gates 20 minutes early which is unheard of for them. I've been there for crazy crowds, and they make us wait it out. So getting in beforehand this must have been quite the crowd.

Another of the reasons I'm glad we watched from home was the view. We were at the Edgar Martinez induction, and were there when they celebrated the 2001 team. Both times I make my way behind the home-plate area on the concourse, and snap tons of pictures. My guess is this would have been nearly impossible with what was probably a sold out stadium. Seeing the entire ceremony with the camera view was better.

(1994 Taco Time promotion postcard)

As Lifetime Topps Project put it Griffey went waaay past his allotted time, and no one cared. The stories he stood there telling made it obvious that this was a passionate man. You could tell why he was so good, as it was due to this passion. This passion is why he will be remembered as one of the best to ever play baseball. He thanked everyone who had anything to do with his career. The guy had so much passion that when he talked about the much hated management. I started to think that maybe these guys are misunderstood. Those feelings were short-lived though as you ask any Mariners fan they want these three gone.

While I never have been the biggest Junior fan. There are baseball moments I remember, and odds are this will be one. It's a shame that it was at home instead of being there in person. The great thing is there has been lots of talk about Junior being in Cooperstown soon. All I can say is with the speech he gave on Saturday as the prequel. Cooperstown had better watch out as his speech there will go down as the best one in history.