By FRED KERBER
June 23, 2008
As the rains pelted the tarp, outfield and fans brave enough to endure the weather or dumb enough to disregard shelter, the scoreboard at Yankee Stadium flashed a highlight reel of Ken Griffey Jr.'s 600th home run. Fans cheered and applauded. Griffey sat in the dugout and saw the tribute.
"I was in there. I heard everything," said Junior, who gave the crowd a wave. "I didn't want to tip the cap or go out there and stir up some stuff. I just waved to thank everybody because I do appreciate it."
Griffey appreciated even more the near-standing ovation he received in the eighth inning when he launched career homer No. 601 off a Kyle Farnsworth fastball just over the wall in right.
"When you do well here, people appreciate it," Junior said after what likely - barring trade to the American League - was his last at-bat in baseball's most storied park. "When you're the visiting team, you get booed. Everybody knows that. But people here love their baseball and when they see somebody do something good, whether for their team or the other team, they're going to root for them. It was nice to see."
And a little surprising. On Friday, Griffey had claimed coming to The Bronx was no biggie, that he still had a chip on his shoulder the size of Ohio about being tossed from the Yankee locker room by Billy Martin as a kid. He even said his best memory of the Stadium was "leaving." Yesterday, after the Yanks' 4-1 series sweep-averting win, it was a kinder, gentler Junior.
"We lost, but it's always been fun," Griffey said of the weekend, when he admitted he took in last looks of the old joint and first peeks of the new Stadium blueprints. "I may pull people's chains here and there throughout the whole year, the month, the week, but when you come to New York, you're going to play better and you're going to have a lot of fun.
"No doubt about people here, the Stadium, the history. If you can't get hyped up here, you can't do it anywhere."
So Griffey went out with a bang, knocking his 34th career homer off the Yankees and 19th at the Stadium.
