Ken Griffey Jr., was good for the Seattle Mariners and they were good for him. The AP reports that the Cincinnati native will collect $3.15 of a potential $5 million for returning to Seattle for the 2009 season. On top of a base salary of $2 million, he cashed in $1.5 million in bonuses tied to playing time and home attendance.
His contributions to the team though, are incalculable. As evidenced by the send off his teammates gave him after the Mariners beat Texas Sunday in the regular season finale. Four of Junior's teammates hoisted the moist-eyed 39-year-old slugger on their shoulders and carried him from left field to the first base side of Safeco field as fans chanted "One more year!"
In what could have been his final at bat with the Mariners, the team he joined as a 6 tool (fun) teenager in 1989, singled and was replaced by a pinch runner on the orders of Manager Don Wakamatsu, so as to afford the fans an opportunity to show their appreciation. And they did not disappoint, clamoring for 'The Kid' to make a curtain call which he did fighting back even more tears.
Junior's attorney Cincinnatian Brian Goldberg indicates that the Mariners and his client have come to terms on a one year contract for next season, that needs only fine tuning of incentives on the teams end. Mariners management knows what Junior has meant to their young superstar of the moment, Ichiro Suzuki. Junior's incessant pranks have helped Suzuki come out of his shell and he's personally lobbied for Junior to return.
The only impediment to that happening are the women in his life, his mother Bertie and wife Melissa and their children, all of whom live in Orlando. That is about as far away from Seattle as one can get but they realize from the send off he got Sunday that one more summer sharing him with the fans of Seattle, would probably complete him for the rest of his life with them.
Write it down: Junior will be back in 2010.
