Ken Griffey Jr. absolutely despises the New York Yankees, and it has everything to do with what happened to him as a child.
The MLB Network documentary Junior took a closer look at the career of Ken Griffey Jr. that saw him reveal why he hated the New York Yankees so much, and it’s a really awful story.
Griffey Jr. had come up to New York to visit his father, who was playing for the Yankees, when a security guard told the senior Griffey that then-Yankees owner George Steinbrenner “(didn’t) want anybody in the dugout.”
Griffey’s father sent him to the locker room, but made sure to point out that taking ground balls at third base at that very moment was the son of Yankees third baseman Graig Nettles.
“There’s certain things that a dad drills into you as a kid that just sticks with you,” he said. And that (beating the Yankees) was one of them.”
Newsday reported that in 1983, Griffey Jr. and his brother were tossed from the Yankees clubhouse because of then-manager Billy Martin:
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“Martin never fessed up and the Griffeys thought owner George Steinbrenner was behind the “no kids in the clubhouse’’ edict and Ken. Jr., carried that notion throughout his career. Later day reports also incorrectly cite Steinbrenner as the culprit.
Steinbrenner, in fact, liked the Yankees’ kids, often patting them on the head in the years when he made frequent visits to the clubhouse.”
Griffey’s career numbers against the Yankees: 36 home runs, 102 RBIs, a .311/.392/.595 slash line and 14 stolen bases in 133 regular-season games. His numbers in that five-game ’95 ALDS: five homers, a .391/.444/1.043 slash line and nine runs scored.
There was also this catch:
