I might have to kick myself and live with it the rest of my life

I'm not going to the game today. I went to the game on Tuesday to see Bruce's debut, and well, I have used up my self-imposed gasoline quota for the week, as I am currently an hour and a half from Cincinnati. (Yeah, some of us make sacrifices for the good of society. I just hope this sacrifice is not too great. Besides, it is too late - I would not get to the game in time.)

See, I'm taking a gamble that Griffey won't hit number 600 today because of the number of at bats it usually takes him to hit his next home run. Oh, I hate to have to make this decision, but baseball is like that. There are things you can control - like seeing the Major League debut of both Bruce and Cueto, as I have done this year - but you can't control when a guy will hit a homer or get his first Major League hit or things of that nature.

Yesterday got me thinking about the career of Ken Griffey, Jr. The goosebumps paid me a visit as I watched 599 sail into the rightfield seats, and the baseball fan in me felt like it was 1998 instead of 2008. When they brought out the special baseballs for his ensuing at bats, it didn't feel real. Griffey has always been just Ken Griffey, Jr. to me, much more than a Cincinnati Red, and I had a hard time believing that this very special thing was happening to a Cincinnati Red in Cincinnati, Ohio, that baseball history was being made, that national attention was turned to the Reds game, and that a man who wore the uniform of my favorite team was interrupting big market games so that television could show his every at bat.

What happened that I had to suddenly wake up from a daze and remember that it was Ken Griffey, Jr. in rightfield, one of the greatest players in the history of the game, a guy who should have the names Bonds, Aaron, Ruth, and Mays before his name by the end of the season and those names only. It's as if his legend has already taken effect and the body in rightfield is some sort of phantom, or an impostor, or someone else entirely. I have become bitter with disappointment over the years from all of the injuries and his comments about Cincinnati fans, and I forgot to just enjoy the fact that it's Ken Griffey, Jr. out there in right, that we are so lucky to be able to watch him play. Junior was my favorite non-Reds player growing up. I think I've fallen in love with him all over again. I don't want him to leave Cincinnati without a ring on his finger.

Baseball, as they say, is a kid's game. For so many of us, it gives us a few hours a day to do the impossible - return to childhood. When we see our heroes age, well, that's a reminder that we, too, are aging, and it doesn't make us feel comfortable. I look around the league and see the greats who were rookies right about the time I was old enough to appreciate them - guys like Tom Glavine, whom we saw Friday night, and Greg Maddux and Gary Sheffield and Jim Edmonds - we see their decline and we want to blame them for it. Heroes aren't supposed to die or fade away. But they do, at least for a few years at the end of their careers, and then they turn into superheroes like Babe Ruth and Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. I imagine Babe Ruth was the subject of ridicule in his last few years, including his stint with the Boston Braves, which everyone forgets about because he just wasn't Babe Ruth then. Time erases most of the bad stuff in life and in the careers of ballplayers.

Griffey is not the player he once was, and there will always be what if surrounding his name. He should be going for 700 right now instead of 600. But that's life. Some things just don't work out how we want them to and we should enjoy the blessings we are fortunate enough to get. We should just sit back and enjoy having Junior on our team and look forward to the day we can say "I saw him play."

Chances are we won't get to see him hit 600 today, that some lucky fan in Philly or Miami will get that moment to stand and shake his head, saying "I just saw one of the greatest players in the history of the game join a club only five other men have entered." (People in Miami don't deserve to witness it - there aren't enough baseball fans there to see it! Philly phans, on the other hand, will pack the house this week, I'm quite sure.) I hope he waits until the Reds come home again - I will try to be at every game if he is still at 599 then. I'll settle for some doubles in the meantime!