Ken Griffey Jr. shares the stories behind his 1989 Upper Deck rookie card
PUBLISHED 13 hours and 20 minutes ago LAST UPDATED 5 hours and 25 minutes ago
Chris Littmann Sporting News
Whether you owned one card or multiple copies, the odds are high that if you collected baseball cards in the late 1980s or 1990s, you probably had the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card. How many copies you had depend on how much money you had to burn or how much of your collection you were willing to sacrifice.
But as the card turns 25 years old, how many copies of the card does Griffey Jr. himself own?
"I got a few ... over 100," Griffey Jr. told Sporting News. "I have the bigger version of that. A couple of those, too. I don't have a hundred, but I have a couple."
Although more than two decades have passed, Griffey still remembers a great deal about that particular card. Not surprisingly, he calls it his favorite card of his career.
"That was actually the first, pretty much," Griffey said. "That baseball card was me in a San Bernardino uniform, they just Photoshopped it.
"If you notice, the Mariners had the blue stripe down the center of the shirt. That one doesn't have it. And if you look at the hat closely enough, you'll see the trim of the red where the yellow is."
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In a 2008 Slate piece, Darren Rovell spoke to Tom Geideman, who made the decision to make Griffey Jr. the No. 1 card in Upper Deck's first set. According to the story, they picked Griffey Jr. over Gregg Jefferies, Sandy Alomar Jr. and Gary Sheffield.
"I had no idea. Being 18, you never know what's going to happen," Griffey said. "Now as you get older, you start looking back at things and that's pretty awesome that the guys there would think that highly of me to make me their No. 1 card."
Griffey said, to this day, he still runs into people who tell him they have his rookie card. Some fans even bring the card to his youngest son Tevin's baseball games, hoping to run into the Mariners legend.
"They'll bring it, but the funny thing is to see the look on my kids' faces," Griffey said. "When they see the hair on my head, and the lack of hair, the shaved sides, but not a Mohawk look. The hairstyles are what really get them."
LOOK BACK: Baseball cards for No. 1 picks in the MLB Draft since 1965
Fast forward 25 years later: Griffey Jr. is retired and he's enjoying golf and watching his childrens' athletic careers. Trey Griffey, of course, had a big bowl game for Arizona, hauling in two touchdowns.
Can Griffey Jr. envision a day when he'll be collecting his own kids' cards?
"I go straight for the uniform, I just take their uniforms," Griffey said. "So last year, Trey's football jersey. His main football jersey from the Under Armour All-American game, his University of Arizona jersey, his bowl game jerseys. I actually have his first football jersey and first baseball jersey in a frame. I've go Taryn's two basketball jerseys and Tevin's first football and baseball jerseys framed."
Had a pretty decent collection
