@@thomasvelazquez9789 dude get out of here don't take some guys that were obvious and some older guys that used to be good back in the day who did it to try to get a little extra stuff cuz they were getting slower pretty much saying everybody was on steroids there's a lot of great players in the 90s who weren't using steroids
@@thomasvelazquez9789 so filming pitches, banging on trash cans, devices taped to hitters body and pitchers putting sh*t on the ball is just nothing huh?
Griffey still to this day is my favorite player ever. His swing was so natural and flowing. Best swing ever imo also. Glad he came to Cincinnati at the end so I could watch him hit some of his HRS live. Amazing
35 HRs at the break. He could've broken the HR record that year, without cheating, had he stayed healthy. Oh what could've been. Still one of the greatest.
@@roland7584 I'd agree, but seeing as how the only real purpose of PEDs is to avoid injury and given that Griffey spent a very good majority of the last half of his career injured, that almost shows that he wasn't juicing...especially since dudes who were OLDER than him WEREN'T getting injured. But yeah, it's definitely possible to make an argument that Griffey was juicing. Which is fine. Should be totally allowed in sports, encouraged in some cases. Even after it was revealed that all those dudes were juicing, I was still a fan cuz it didn't change anything about the core of their character. It's also why I was never a fan of Pete Rose. He was a bad person at his core no matter how many PEDs he took.
@@SirJoelsuf1 I'm not sure which older guys weren't getting injured (other than Cal Ripken, Jr.) but either way getting injured is definitely not proof that someone isn't juicing. Many times these juicers outgrow their own bodies due to muscle mass and leg injuries are quite common among them and Griffey was famous for leg injuries. We know that steroid use became a thing in MLB during the late 80s (thank you Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire), and the better stuff for the players came out sometime a few years later and progressively got better and harder to detect (although testing wasn't around until later anyway). When I look at the stats of Griffey, Jr. all that pops out to me are his 1994-1999 stats which are off the charts from the rest of his career and are right in the timeframe of most of the other steroid using home run chasing crowd at the time. If you look at Barry Bonds' numbers from 1994-1999, Barry's stats look like an average player compared to Griffey's. By 2000 Griffey's body starts to fail him, and Barry moved into a new ballpark that favored his left handed power over the right field wall as well as his known "cream and clear" steroid use and it's during that time that his stats start to mimic Griffey's 1994-1999 seasons.
@@roland7584 All you have to do is look at their frames and the ages at which their "off the charts" stats took place. Bonds and McGwire did it late in their career. Griffey did it in the window of what is considered to be the "athletic peak". Griffey put on body fat and weight associated with age in men. Bonds' head, arms, legs and traps got HUGE as did McGwire's. I know many a person using or who have used steroids and there are obvious signs in every one of them. Not all steroids make you massive but the ones that don't give you a hard, dry, dense muscular look. Lance Armstrong used EPO to boost his red blood cell production.... that isn't a steroid. Using an AAS with EPO would be very dangerous as EPO already thickens your blood considerably do to the overproduction of red blood cells and using even a bioidentical Testosterone Cypionate would have been very dangerous due to the propensity of testosterone to elevate hematocrit considerably. Griffey wasn't on Roids.
This HR derby win was especially impressive when you consider who he had to go up against. Jim Thome, Mark McGwire, Alex Rodriguez, and Rafael Palmiero.
Man I never realized how bad his pitcher was in this derby either....but yeah McGwire was awesome! 98' season was and still is my favorite season to watch.
When I was growing up, every kid on the playground put their hats on backwards after the Derbys to emulate Griffey. He was everyone's favorite player. Would be awesome if a Tatis or Ohtani can capture a generation in that same way.
Man this was the year! We had season tickets to the Mariners this year, we had the 2 leading home run hitters in the AL, and every little league team in America had someone trying to swing like Griffey. 90s baseball was some of the best years of my life.
Ken Griffey, Jr. had the smoothest swing in baseball. It looked like it took no effort to swing. I would of like to seen him do the 4 minute rounds like today.
a homerun every 7 at-bats. How did no one figure Mark may have been juicing? Every time I see that overlay in these older events/games, I ask "really? No one thought that was suspicious?" That stat is INSANE. Should have been tested immediately. Raphy still disappoints me knowing he also juiced. He had such a great swing, loved watching his at-bats back in the day. Such a shame. Griffey is the GOAT. Imagine missing two years in your prime and still hitting 630 bombs while batting a career avwrage of .284 and winning a pile of gold gloves.
Get them back on the juice! The entertainment was amazing! I don't understand the problem. They wanted to "possibly" ruin their body to be better, is that not what people want to watch? To me PED's should be allowed in any sport. Who am I to tell someone what to do with their body?
Just think how special and truly gifted Ken Griffey Jr really was. He was all Natural and all the rest of them in this home run derby line up/entire era besides chipper. The only votes Ken Griffey jr. Didn't get to have 100% of the votes for the hall of fame were from 3 Yankee fans and if you dont know that story you need to look it up.
Living in Denver at this time will always remain among my favorite memories of MLB. Went to more than 50 games a year at the brand new Coors Field and will never forget the view while sitting down the rightfield line as the sun set over the mountains. OMG the colors a Colorado sky can produce at that hour of the night.
Because you’re not a kid anymore. People want to hold onto the past and claim that everything else is the problem. The truth is you’ll never be able to relive the first time you saw these superstars in the 90s. Move on.
Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr hands down are Legends in '98, clean wise for Barry. Nonetheless, JR was the closest someone clean, has ever come to reaching 61.
Griffey would have broken Hank Aaron's HR record if it weren't for injuries. He may have been the most talented/athletic player in history other than Bo Jackson and maybe Mike Trout. Also, everything he did on the field was done honestly and without PED's My favorite player of all time and it's not even close, to be honest.
Correction- Griffey would have broken Hank Aaron’s HR record if it weren’t for injuries caused by steroid use. Its so funny that Griffey got away with it. Everyone else on his team in Seattle used steroids. And A-Rod used steroids that were designed to not cause bulk. Can we put 2+2 together? I loved Griffey like everyone else but come on… he was juiced. And when he got to Cincinnati he probably stopped juicing and he started getting hurt, just as described in medical textbooks.
@@phoenixrising441 I knew a guy that played in the organization for the mariners back then. I asked him about griffey and he said no way he was juicing from what he knew. He said he barely lifted weights. He took BP all the time and would just joke around. The injuries he sustained could really have happened to anyone that played reckless like he did for the 10 years prior and playing where the mariners played and the reds played did play a part. A-Rod started juicing when he got to TX with Pudge, Gonzalez and of course Canseco.
@Lighthouse in the Storm Because society was at its peak. Right around 2000 or 2001 and the 9/11 attacks the world has gotten significantly worse and progressively de-evolving.
@Lighthouse in the Storm everything was just more harmonious and innocent, the world had a glow to it, you just had to experience it to know what I mean, the energy of the planet was better, maybe I was just a kid, either way 1998 was an amazing year, basketball was great, baseball was great, hockey, WWF, entertainment was at an all time high, atheletes were at the peak, music was good, just good vibes all over.
The size difference in Mark from 1994 to 1998 is insane. People knew something was up but everyone was having too much fun to call it out. Griffey did it without the juice. It just makes all of his incredible accomplishments much more important for baseball. Such an amazing and naturally gifted player. We will never see another like him. 🎉
He missed over 300 games. That's almost 2 whole seasons. Imagine had he averaged even 25 homers in that span of games. He could've ended 4th overall with 680 homers, and that's just guessing conservatively. The best ever
@@mg19cal I’m really glad he never did but could you imagine if he would’ve juiced! Would’ve been bonkers! Still to this day Griffey is still my 2nd favorite player ever. 1st is Cal Ripken Jr.
@@obthree2830 yeah Griffey is my all timer. Him and Rickey Henderson. I always liked Cal though, big respect. I feel like he stopped his streak too soon. Check this out if you ever get a chance ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wK5bEivWaos.html
@@mg19cal I liked Ricky a lot to. A person I try to tell youngsters about now is Barry Bonds. Everyone remembers him for steroids and hrs but he was a no doubt hof guy before he started all that nonsense. He was a 30 30 guy every year. I never really was a huge fan of his but I’m also a Chicago guy so I’m a cub fan.
Imagine peak griffey jr swinging a maple bat. Especially today’s bats. From Marruci, victus,chandler, Louisville slugger there’s so many great maple and birch bats.
Wanted to watch Griff and McGwire and this was the greatest hour or so in my life. I remember watching this back when I was 16. 90's baseball was so different and I miss it.
Todd Frazier was 12 years old watching this in 1998, he won the HR Derby in 2015 and got a Wrestling Champion belt with his trophy. "LETS GET READY TO RUMBLLLLLEEEEE"
My three favorite swings in baseball were...Ken Griffey Jr , Darrell Strawberry and Shawn Green...when I was a kid it was the big swingers like Killibrew , Kaline and Yaz
Really enjoyed this, I loved the game from a little kid back in the 80s... The '98 season is a special season... It brought the fans back to game after the 94 strike but it did something else, maybe overlooked but no less important, it put the game and sport of baseball back in the conscience of America. People began paying attention. Now we put those players, some of them in a prison where the gate keepers are the same folks who praised them and gave them Cy Young and MVP awards... Jr definitely the sweetest swing Ever! Man I miss the 90s. ⚾💙🙂
I remember when Tommy Lasorda felt that Griffey Jr. was disrespecting the game when he wore the hat backwards. History showed that Griffey earned the right to do that
Watching this now, years later. I forgot about some of these names. And seeing a young Alex Rodriguez, wow. If only people knew what would happen over the next few years.
Call me crazy but I liked this format. You would get a more ambient feel and seeing the camera track the ball was entertaining. Yes, it was slow but they could tweak it so you are not allowed to have so many takes to speed up the process.
Ken Griffey JR= Prettiest swing ever also the only guy who’s biceps are not trying to rip through his jersey and who’s using a lighter bat because launch angle matters.
Jr goes off? Well, he won but I wouldn't call what he did here going off..... So glad I got to see him play while he was in Seattle, one of the best ever....
The original 10-out system is so much better than the timed rounds they do today. I also like the 10 player field. Especially in the '90s, with all the legendary sluggers (on steroids lol) at the time. MLB should consider reverting to the old format.
Lifetime mariners fan..griffey was my hero as a kid..only game I went to I must of been 7..I was in the outfield and he was playing center..I kept yelling his name and waving at him and he kept looking up but trying to stay focused on what was going on In the game..finally he waved back and gave a big smile..made my year
We can't win them all But we will getThem tomorrow good game team keep on doing what you do champ and keep on having fun Baltimore orioles A BIG FAN ONE LOVE ⚾️🙌🏾💯💪🏿🇺🇲🔥🇺🇲👏🏾👏🏾
