BOISE, Idaho — THIS DAY IN SPORTS…April 1, 1997, 25 years ago today:
On Opening Day before 57,586 fans at the Kingdome, Seattle centerfielder Ken Griffey Jr. crushes two home runs off David Cone as the Mariners upend the defending world champion New York Yankees, 4-2. Junior would go on to have a monstrous MVP season, leading the American League with 56 homers, 125 runs, and 147 RBIs. Mark McGwire would have competed for the AL home run crown that year, but he was traded by Oakland to the St. Louis Cardinals in midseason. McGwire hit 58 home runs between the two teams in two leagues.
Which brings us to the crux of Griffey’s career. During the height of baseball’s steroid era, he was never suspected of taking performance enhancers. The following year, McGwire and the Cubs’ Sammy Sosa went head-to-head in a riveting NL home run race, with McGwire shattering Roger Maris’ single-season record of 61 and Sosa hitting 66. Griffey was in the shadows despite smashing 56 homers again to lead the AL.
He would go on to stints with the Cincinnati Reds and Chicago White Sox before returing to the Mariners for the final two seasons of his career. Griffey retired in 2010 with 630 career home runs, currently seventh on the all-time list. In 2016, Griffey was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, receiving a record 99.32 percent of the vote. You know who’s still on the outside looking in? McGwire and Sosa.
Griffey was taken first overall in the 1987 MLB Draft and was assigned to the Bellingham Mariners of the Northwest League. He came through Boise that summer, facing the Hawks, who were in their inaugural season at Borah Field. Two years later he was making jaw-dropping catches in centerfield in the Kingdome (when he wasn’t ripping the cover of the ball). A 2019 poll voted Griffey the greatest Mariner of all time by a 3-to-1 margin over Edgar Martinez.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
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