Ken Griffey, Jr.'s homecoming, 25 years later

A day no Reds fan will ever forget

Is it possible that it’s been 25 years? A quarter-century?!?

I sometimes think about that afternoon in February twenty-five years ago — February 10, 2000 — and try to remember how it felt. Can you remember? For those of us in the post-Big Red Machine generation, it was maybe the greatest day of our Reds fandom (okay, 1990 notwithstanding), and it bounces around in our memories like some magical bit of baseball folklore, played in soft focus.

It was the day Ken Griffey Jr. came home.

If you were a Reds fan around that time, I’m willing to bet that you remember that crisp buzz in the air. You remember thinking, This can’t really be happening, can it? The Kid — the transcendent superstar, the backward-cap-wearing, generation-defining center fielder — was on his way to Cincinnati, the same place where he was once “Li’l Kenny,” running around Riverfront Stadium while his dad, Ken Sr., terrorized National League pitching with the Big Red Machine.

A trade. A contract extension. A press conference that felt like a coronation and a family reunion and a rock concert all rolled into one. Reds general manager Jim Bowden was practically bouncing as he introduced The Michael Jordan of Baseball. And there was Junior, quietly grinning, leaning into the microphone and uttering those three words I’ll never forget: “I’m finally home.”

This week marks the 25th anniversary of that moment, and time’s flown by, as they say, because so many of us remember it like it was yesterday. The Reds had just finished a wild and wonderful 1999 season, falling a game short of making the postseason, that 163rd game heartbreak against the Mets. (Screw you, Al Leiter.) But there was real optimism swirling around the ballclub.

Barry Larkin was still the proud captain. Sean Casey was quickly becoming the Mayor of Cincinnati, with that big smile and bigger line drives. The team had pitching concerns, sure — that always seemed to be the case in those days — but it felt like something special was brewing. And then Junior — fresh off smashing 398 home runs in Seattle, fresh off his tenth Gold Glove and an entire decade of All-Star Games — decided he wanted to spend years in the prime of his career not in L.A. or New York, but in the very place where he’d grown up as Ken Sr.’s boy. In the very place where he ran the tunnels at Riverfront as a kid, sneaking red pop out of Sparky Anderson’s mini-fridge. It felt as though, for one dazzling instant, the baseball gods had shifted the universe in Cincinnati’s favor. Finally.

(Photo: Chad Dotson)

Here’s how Chris and I described Junior in The Big 50 (updated edition available for pre-order now!):

[In] the beginning, in Cincinnati, he was just “Li’l Kenny.”

His dad was the original Ken Griffey, a standout player for the Big Red Machine in the 1970s. Back then, Junior was one a group of players’ kids who ran through the tunnels of Riverfront Stadium, taking swings in the batting cages, and generally wreaking havoc. There was Li’l Kenny, as manager Sparky Anderson called him, and his brother Craig, Petey Rose, Pedro Borbon Jr., Lee May Jr., and Eduardo Perez, among others.

Sparky encouraged his players to bring their children to the ballpark, but he had a couple of rules. Kids were welcome in the clubhouse before games, and after games that the Reds had won. Not during the game.

Li’l Kenny and Eduardo -- his father was Tony Perez -- were intimidated by Sparky. That didn’t stop them from, on several occasions, sneaking into Anderson’s office during a Reds game and swiping red pop from the manager’s well-stocked mini-fridge.

Meanwhile, on the field, Junior’s dad was hitting balls into the gap and speeding around the bases for the fearsome Reds.

I bet you can still see Griffey’s introduction. He wore his dad’s old number 30 (since the Reds were planning to retire Tony Pérez’s 24 in May), tried on the new Reds cap, flashed that inescapable, thousand-watt grin, and said all the right things about how it wasn’t about money, it was about family and home. Suddenly, fans everywhere got to imagine the Kid hitting bombs into the seats at Riverfront Stadium*, wearing our uniform, giving chase in center field. It was literally unimaginable just a few weeks earlier, but there he was. If there’s one intangible quality that ties all Reds fans together, it’s history — with the Big Red Machine at the center, Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Tony Pérez, and of course Senior himself. And now Ken Griffey Jr. was going to continue that storyline, leading the Redlegs into the next era of glory.

*It was called Cinergy Field at the time, but it’ll always be Riverfront to me.

For a lot of folks — me included — the sheer thrill of seeing Griffey in red pinstripes during that 2000 season might never quite be matched. This was The Kid, the best player in baseball, the face of the sport for a decade, a name that transcended box scores. He was on The Simpsons, for crying out loud! And he said, “I want to be a Red.”

The best player on the planet actually wanted to be a Red. Can you imagine?

Yes, as we learned, the baseball gods can be capricious. We know that now. Injuries came like thunderclouds. Hamstrings and knees and shoulders, every battered piece of that once-invincible body conspiring to keep Griffey in the trainer’s room. By mid-decade, Junior’s raw stat lines reflected all of the missed time. There were stints on the DL that left us all wondering if we’d ever see that picture-perfect swing unleash its full fury again. But I’ve always believed — and I think many Reds fans believe — the injuries don’t overshadow the wonder of it all. In his first year as a Red, before those legs started to fail him, Griffey still hit 40 home runs, made the National League All-Star team, still looked very much like the Junior we knew. And there were unforgettably electric moments scattered throughout his Cincinnati years: the Father’s Day in St. Louis when he slugged that 500th homer in front of his dad, the day he belted his 600th, the All-Star nods, the times he laced a game-winning single and showed that wattage in his smile again.

If you were in the ballpark on any day Ken Griffey Jr. played, even if he was at 70% or 50% or hobbling a bit, I guarantee you found yourself glued to his at-bats. Most of us in the stands never quite lost that sense of awe. His presence in the clubhouse brought out the prankster side of the team, too — remember the time he settled a debt by paying in 1,500 pennies? Even in those leaner, losing seasons, Junior made the daily slog more fun, for me anyway.

And let’s not forget, all told, over eight and a half seasons in Cincinnati, Griffey still hit more than 200 home runs. He joined the Reds Hall of Fame, alongside his Cooperstown honors. He gave us memories, yes, but also gave many of us something else: a living example of that father-son circle. How many of us became Reds fans because of our fathers and grandfathers? Well, Junior’s story was a little different — he had the father who’d once sped around the bases for the Big Red Machine, and he was the son who came up wanting to be just like dad, and then wearing that same uniform for a near-decade. That father-and-son parallel is a baseball story that spans generations.

This, for me, captures the magic of that 25-year-old moment. Cincinnati is a city that never lets go of its baseball stories; often, it’s the only thing we have — from the very first professional nine to the roaring 1970s and the Wire-to-Wire Redlegs. And then the Kid who came home. On that day, we were filled with hope: the local boy turned legend was returning to deliver us from heartbreak and slumps, from a decade of mostly flailing about. When he walked into that press conference and said, “I’m finally home,” it was like a cosmic alignment. The Reds, that proud old franchise, were relevant again.

Time has a way of folding in on itself, and sometimes I still see that moment in my mind: Griffey in a Reds jersey, camera lights flashing, the city exhaling in joy. The fact that it didn’t bring multiple World Series appearances — or even one — might be a disappointment from one vantage, but I prefer to remember the fun times from that era. There were so many nights at the old ballpark when you settled into your seat, thinking you just might see a 400-foot display of grace and power, courtesy of The Kid. So many father-son outings in the stands, so many new fans wearing hats backward. That’s the essence of it all. He remains one of our own, as they say in European football.

Hope isn’t a strategy for a baseball front office, but it’s at the very heart of what it means to be a hardcore fan. Twenty-five years ago, anything seemed possible. Baseball can be heartbreak and disappointment, yes, but it can also be that pure anticipation, the sense that we’re right on the threshold of something special. There’s a little of that floating around the Queen City these days, as a matter of fact. (Thanks, Elly.)

For one perfect moment a quarter-century ago, that threshold felt wide open. Every time I think back on it, I hear the echo of Griffey’s laughter. I see him hugging his dad, the crowd going bananas, the entire city of Cincinnati turning its eyes to center field. And I remember, with a touch of that old kid-like wonder, that sometimes fairy tales do happen — even if they don’t end exactly as you planned, they can still be downright magical while they last. And for us, on that day, Ken Griffey Jr. proved that, yes indeed, you can go home again.