Last night Ken Griffey, Jr. hit his 600th home run and became the only the sixth player in history of Major League Baseball to reach that milestone. Babe Ruth, Henry Aaron, Willie Mays, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds being the others. Griffey has long been regarded as one of the most gifted players of his generation but his career has been marred by numerous injuries that caused him to miss a substantial numbers of games. As a consequence, baseball pundits and commentators immediately began the what if game. What if Griffey hadn't been sidelined with so many injuries? Would he, instead of Bonds, have been the first to break Aaron's career home run mark? Would he have established himself as the greatest player ever? Enough with the speculation because it ends nowhere. It is something of a cliche but injuries are necessarily a part of athletic competition and, as such, cannot be conveniently set aside when evaluating a player's body of work. One thing is certain the all-out effort that Griffey expended in playing centerfield and unfortunately caused the majority of his injuries was the same force that allowed him to fashion a Hall-of-Fame career and was no small factor in attaining the 600-home run plateau. Better to judge Jr. on the basis of what is, rather than what might have been.
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