Ken Griffey Jr.: One of us
Posted on June 13th, 2008 – 10:07 AMBy Michael Rand
We might have inadvertently stumbled upon a new feature: “One of us.” The premise: finding a famous person with a very loose connection to Minnesota, then claiming that person for our own. Stu kind of got the ball rolling with yesterday’s Hunt Down; and now Toonces51 continues it by passing along this chestnut regarding Ken Griffey Jr. and his 600th home run ball (by the way, for a very cool interactive feature on all 600 home runs, check this out). It seems there is a controversy involving the fan who caught the ball. Here’s the first part of the story:
Justin Kimball says he never wanted 15 minutes of this kind of fame. The 25-year-old aspiring musician bought a ticket — Section 130, Row 8, Seat 23 - for the Florida Marlins’ game with the Cincinnati Reds on Monday night, hoping for that once-in-a-lifetime brush with history. He was in the right-field seats, envisioning that Ken Griffey Jr., one of his boyhood idols, would hit career home run No. 600 into his waiting hands. Kimball says the miracle happened. His lawyers have nine witnesses saying the same. But the Marlins say his recollection isn’t true, and video replays don’t conclusively support the claim, either. So here we go again: The rights to yet another historic baseball — like the one Barry Bonds hit for his 73rd home run in 2001 and Bonds’ 762nd career homer last year — will likely be decided in a courtroom.
OK, no local connection yet. Wait for it … wait for it … way down in the story.
Kimball said he grew up in Minnesota a huge Twins fan. He remembers going to the Metrodome to see the Seattle Mariners, back when that lineup featured Griffey and Jay Buhner and Alex Rodriguez and Randy Johnson. And as a third-grader, he said he bought a book from his school’s reading club about baseball - one with Griffey on the cover.
Conclusive proof: Griffey is one of us.
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