Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Assignment 14

Ken Griffey Jr. made me want to be a journalist. It seems weird to say that, since we’ve never met, but when I was ten years old, there was no one cooler than Ken Griffey. Starting in center field for the Seattle Mariners (when they were good), he had just come off his first and only MVP season, and I was getting to that age where if you didn’t know sports, you sat alone on the swings at recess.

1998 was the year St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris’ single season home run record, one of the most hallowed records in all of baseball. Chicago Cubs right fielder Sammy Sosa also passed the record that season. In third place that season was Ken Griffey Jr., who hit 56 home runs for the second year in a row.

I never trusted McGwire or Sosa. Even when I was ten, I’d read stories in the newspaper about McGwire using some kind of supplement. Of course, being ten, I had no idea what androstenedione was, and I didn’t care. I knew he was being dishonest.



There was something about Sammy Sosa that I didn’t like either. I kept reading about how he was taking “vitamins”, but I wasn’t totally sure about it.



The only person I ever really believed in was Griffey. In what came to be known as the Steroid Era in baseball, he stood as a beacon of integrity, above the suspicion that ran rampant throughout the sport. Although his numbers declined after that season, and his path to the top of the record books was cut short by nagging injuries, he is still widely considered to be one of the best players ever.

Griffey, Sosa, and McGwire were credited, by virtue of their race to the record, with saving baseball, which in 1998 was seeing a decline in ratings and attendance. For a class project, I wrote a report on the race, chronicling all three men and their respective seasons. That, I feel like, was my first journalistic experience. Was it biased? Totally. Was it very good? For a ten year old, I guess. But it sparked a desire to write about sports for a career.

I liked the feeling I got when I was doing the research, reading the stats, and writing the story itself. I still enjoy that feeling. I still want to do it for a living. I like being the guy who has all the answers. I like being the guy with the inside info that regular fans don't have access to. I like sitting in the press box with people who think like I do, and learning from them.

It's not a nine to five. I know that. I understand that I'm going to probably be working myself to the bone for pennies. I'll get over it. Like "The Kid" when he was in his prime, with his approach to the game he loves and his desire to succeed, I'll take a few strikes in my career, but when I get a pitch to hit... sayonara.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009