Hall of Fame Day

Ken Griffey, Jr. and Mike Piazza enter the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, NY Sunday afternoon. The induction ceremony starts at 1:30 EDT and will be carried live on MLB Network. These are two interesting players outside of their statistics.

Griffey represents an inflection point in the game. He arrived when ESPN was still new and making it’s way into people’s homes. Sports Center was 1/2 hour, and came on at 11:30. I didn’t get cable until 1987, and what I discovered was that I could watch the local news, then tune into Sports Center and get all the baseball highlights. Along comes Griffey in 1989, and Sports Center has a star to promote. Griffey’s swing is a thing of beauty, and he hits no-doubt home runs. He climbs the wall in centerfield and makes robs home runs. He’s young and hip, with his hat on backwards. Griffey give ESPN their first baseball star, and ESPN gives Griffey a nationwide stage. The combination showed that a player from an obscure baseball town could be a National star. This also coincided with the maturation of fantasy baseball, giving both ESPN and Griffey an audience for his highlights.

Piazza’s induction breaks the barrier erected against suspected PED users. Players like Jeff Bagwell and Piazza are suspect of using PEDs, as they played at the believed height of their use. There was never any clear evidence against this group of players, and with Piazza getting in, that clears the way for the rest.

I saw Piazza take batting practice once, and I was up close, at the cage. He was partnered with John Olerud and they made for an interesting contrast. Olerud’s swing was effortless, perfect fluid motion. Without appearing to try very hard, he hit hard line drive after line drive. Piazza swing was violent. You could see every muscle in his body work to crush the ball, and crush he did. He looked strong and he swung the bat holding back nothing. The two had very different approaches, but both succeeded as hitters.

Enjoy the ceremony!

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2alPm5C