Full Count

J-Roll - the 2007 NL MVP

Rollins patrols the infield

"Okay if knowledge is the key, then just show me the lock, got the scrawny legs, but I move just like Lou Brock...with speed, I'm agile, plus I'm worth your while, 100% intelligent, black child."

Q-Tip - Check The Rhime

Baseball is a numbers game, which is interesting because I'm not a fan of math. The game however, is built on statistics, from batting averages and RBI (runs batted in), to ERA (earned run average) and OBP (on base percentage).

The schematics of baseball are intriguing, but its the decrease of black players that concerns me more than home runs, or wins and losses. In my childhood approximately 20 years ago the number of black players in the big leagues hovered around 30%. Currently that number has plummeted to 10%, making the following interview with Philadelphia Phillies Shortstop paramount to GAME TIME with AG.

Aesthetically, Citizens Bank Park is an amazing place for a baseball game, and the club house is just as beautiful fit for a championship team. I had a few minutes with the reigning MVP as he sat at his locker Nike footwear and apparel for he and I. (Would an aluminum bat and a pair of Hyperdunks be too much to ask for...)

Below is our conversation of baseball, admiration, numbers, change, and Nike:

Nike is a very prestigious brand talk about your affiliation:

"I'll put it this way...first of all I used to always buy Nike growing up...you know with Michael Jordan and all. And then one day the powers that be...even before I got called up to the big leagues...I got called up in 2000...there was a Nike representative that contacted my agent because they [Nike baseball] came out with a new equipment, glove, sun glasses and all that stuff. I was asked to try it, and I was like 'hey its Nike...sure, I used to pay for it, and now I'm getting it for free? Sure I'll try it! So when I tried the glove, it was okay, I was able to make some adjustments to it, and I didn't even sign with them yet, but we were in talks, and they let me have influence on their products. I was one of the first guys to wear the sun glasses and then I was given a head to toe deal with all the equipment, all the gear up to a certain amount, and its been on ever since 2000...2001."

Talk about competing against Ken Griffey Jr.:

"I met Ken Griffey Jr. back in 1996 as I was going through the draft and I was just hanging out in the clubhouse...and he didn't have to come up to me at all, but he decided to come over and give me some words of wisdom that I still remember. It helped me get through the minor leagues, and he told me 'I've never seen you play, and I don't even know how good you are, but you are here for a reason, and along the way you are going to have coaches, trying to tell you this and trying to tell you that, and some of it is going to make sense...some of it isn't, but whatever you do, continue to do, because that's why you're here now. So from right there whenever I saw him I was like a kid, I used to wear his shoes and everything. That really made it personal to me and from that point for the next 4 years I was waiting to get to the big leagues just to ask him if he remembered that, and he cracks up, because he actually does. But if you look at him, he has transcended the game if you look at the way he plays center field by being The Kid, being that personality. He was something that baseball needed, and look what he did with Nike. He has his own shoe and now we are going to surprise everybody soon with the SWING TEAM."

What is the significance of your number?

"Well actually the number 11 was my basketball number and the number 6 was my number for baseball. When I first got here Doug Glanville was wearing 6, so I went with my second favorite number from basketball. It was a number in basketball that I had success in, I was a good defensive player, I had good seasons wearing it, I liked it, it felt good, it fit me, it looked good...I'm short and the 1's are vertical so they make me to appear a lot taller, so it looked good on my back. When I did switch over to 6, people said it made me look short and round, and why did I switch? It was just an opportunity to get my number back, but everybody had grown to know number 11. Then there is my nickname J-Roll, with the two LL's, the 11, and Rollins, every thing is symmetrical and made me look taller. Its a great number, Isiah Thomas wore it and he won championships, Barry Larkin wore it, Ozzie Smith wore number 1, so that number is a good number in sports period."

What does the Negro League mean to you?

"I remember when Soul of the Game came out, back in '95 or '96...I was still in high school, I probably watched that special on HBO maybe 20 or 30 times, I mean over and over, and over again, because you can never get tired of hearing the stories and trying to imagine what it was like for them playing ball. When I grew up, there was still racism but there was no segregation. I could eat the restaurants, I could make a reservation to sit in a particular area of the restaurant, and they had to go to the back door or walk through the kitchen, and sometimes they had to get the food delivered to them because they weren't allowed in the restaurant. I think about how they had to go about and play the game separate from Major League Baseball, even before that, the barnstorming leagues, and they went through a lot for us to step onto the field. Not only that, look at the way they changed society, when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball...it gave blacks a sense of pride, that they could change things and that they can make a difference. If you look at that, you can see how it changed America. It gave black people opportunities to do things in this country and in the world...like run for President. We have Barack now, so the world has definitely changed. It started with a vision, and now we are starting to seeing the fruits of the labor."

Extra innings -

Remember those red Nike contact lenses...did you wear them?

"They were like real sun glasses expect they were contact lenses. I had the auburn color first, and I wore them on a Nike trip to Hawaii. Now I had never worn contacts before, and I was fine having someone else to put them in, but when you are trying to put them in yourself...I was having trouble [laughs]. Once they are on they are really cool, no irritation to the eye and it was like wearing glasses, without wearing glasses. That technology is off the chain, and that's why they [Nike] are one of the biggest companies in the world."

Batman

The Kid is now the MAN

Another day at the office

Junior Griffey an outfielder and a gentlemen

The night is beautiful,
So the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people.

Beautiful, also, is the sun.

Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.

-Langston Hughes, My people

Ken Griffey Jr. is my favorite baseball players, so when I had the opportunity to interview him, there was no doubt that I would be there. I love baseball, and while the game is often passed down from generation to generation, I taught myself the game at the precocious age of 13. I used to watch NBA Inside Stuff and one commercial for Upper Deck trading cards used to stand out, as it showed Griffey Jr. robbing some unlucky hitter of a home run. His grace, swing, and number 24 intrigued me, so I begin to watch the Seattle Mariners, as I learned the game through the American League. Now I cheer for the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies, however that is another story.

Junior Griffey is a very respectful, humble, and talented person. I was honored to interview one of the true legends of the Major League Baseball. Below is the conversation we had around the diamond, during the Phillies batting practice:

Talk about your relationship with Nike:
“[Big smile] It started with my first pair of Air Jordan…actually I had Nike before then, but I remember getting them. My brother had the red and black and I had the red, black, and white Air Jordan. We tried to talk my dad into Nike…he was into Converse, but we finally got him to go with Nike, and we have been a Nike family ever since. When I got to pro ball, I signed a contract…in the minor leagues I got 3 pairs of shoes, and when I got to the big leagues it was $1500 dollars, with $750 in merchandise and $750 in cash.

It’s not a company, it’s more of a family, and I think they have been through the ups and downs with me as far as my getting hurt, and all that I have been through. When I broke my wrist, I had to get a plate and 9 screws, and they [Nike] had a little small wall and everybody wrote get well soon. I detached a hamstring and one of the guys, Lynn Merritt who I’ve known since I was 19 came and visited me for a few days. I went to a basketball game and I sat between LeBron [James] and Phil [Knight]…it’s really just more of a family than it is a business relationship and I wouldn’t have it any other way. When my family needed something Nike was there.

On the commemorative 600 home runs sneaker:
“Yeah we are working on that, I just have to hit it [laughs]. Nike has taken care of my family…they always send a gift for Christmas, or a fruit basket, and the same thing on mother’s day and father’s day. Everybody that wears Nike, even if they play for the other team, we know all about them.”

Talk about your signature line and which sneaker is your favorite?
“The first one...it’s always the first one. What’s really interesting is that my son always gets my shoe before me. His baseball season would start off a month before mine, and I’d look at his shoes and say ‘man they look nice, I can’t wait to get mine…and he’d give me a look like yeah! He would get the shoes, and even now he gets them before me. If I come home and he has on the 600 home runs shoe, I’m going to look at him like he’s crazy, [laughs]. He’s my son and I can’t really argue.”

What was it like filming that baseball commercial with Michael Jordan and Spike Lee?
“My main man Spike! [Laughs] It was fun. I got to meet Spike Lee and I was so nervous…because I couldn’t wait to say ‘my main man Spike! You get nervous when you meet certain people and he is one of them. It wasn’t so much about meeting Mike…Mike was easy, it was just the fact that meeting Spike Lee and all of the things he has done, and I got a chance to see him this past off-season and I asked him if I could get that 3-movie deal [laughs]. I would like to one day go behind the scenes and sit there and watch him, because I think that is more entertaining than his actual work. His creativeness, how the Michael Jordan concept came about, etc., all the people that are a part of Nike is family. I can call Spike right now…his wife called my wife a couple of weeks ago, talking about getting together.”

When you look at 600 home runs what do you see?
“I start laughing; you have to understand that growing up in my house was a lot differently than other houses. Most people have to relate to their kids through sports…not in my house. Because my dad played sports, so we had other things to talk about. It wasn’t sports, it was how are you, how did you do this, and how did you do that? I knew how my dad did and that was the last thing we talked about. It didn’t matter if he went 0-4 or 4-4 he always came home with the same attitude. It was our turn, its was ‘hey lets go play, let’s do whatever. Now there is so much emphasis on the individual instead of the team. I remember going to the games and over 50% of the people in the stands had a program so they could mark down how the team was doing, they kept score; how many people are doing that now? You don’t see it anymore.”

So why do you wear the number 3? You used to wear 24, and I wore that number because I was born on October 24th:
“Really, October 24th…that’s my wedding day! I hit 24 home runs in one year, and one of my favorite players growing up was Ricky Henderson and he wore 24, and I really didn’t think about that…and growing up having guys around like Joe Black, Willie Mays, Chuck Harmon Sr., you know all these guys in my house day in and day out…I got a sense of history…a sense of history early, and what an African American had to go through and what they had to do for guys like me now to put on a uniform. I remember laughing because my dad would tell me stories, ‘I walked in the snow to school 12-miles, up hill both ways, you know that sort of thing. I grew up on those stories, and you say that didn’t really happen, that didn’t happen, and then you start listening to the other people talk and then you think…that really did happen. Maybe I should start believing it. And they would always make the stories funny, and some of the stories they told, I would start cracking up. When I check into hotels, a couple aliases I used were Joe Black; I tried to mix it up every now and then. I have 3 kids, I picked 24, 14 home runs and then 10 home runs in summer ball and in school, and then it was 30 for my dad, and then I picked 3 for my three kids. My oldest is Trey, which means 3, my daughter we named a boat after her, Taryn and we have another boat named the Chosen One because my youngest [Tevin] is adopted. So Trey asked me why I don’t do anything for him, so it’s for him and because I have three kids.”

What was it like playing with your dad in 1990?
“It was a lot of fun, but it was different. Everyone would talk to him and say ‘hey Ken how are you doing, and I would say hey dad let’s go…where are we going to eat? It was always dad, dad, dad. On the field he would say this is your team go out and play, have fun…I’m here to help you. He didn’t treat me like his son, he treated me like I was his teammate and I learned a lot by watching him and what he did. He was a guy that didn’t hit very many home runs, but he knew how to set up pitchers. He helped me out in the long run, I wouldn’t take certain pitches and then the next one, I’d hit it because I was looking for it. I miss those days.”

What did the Negro Leagues mean to you?
“It means everything! Guys went out there and they didn’t have the same opportunities nor the same equipment…I can sit here all day and the stories that Willie [Mays] told me…he said they used to wash their clothes, and then put them in the window on the bus and close the window to let the clothes dry in the wind. And I’m like ‘nah, and then I saw a picture, so those guys never gave up on their dream of being a professional athlete, and whatever they had to do they did it, and a lot of people don’t see that. Jackie Robinson took a whole lot of punishment so we could be here, and every generation gets farther and farther away from it, because they don’t know those stories. I had a dad that watched those games, and I grew up with people in my house that played in the league and against each other. I have a 1956 World Series baseball that Joe [Black] gave me, and it’s sitting in my house. He wanted to give it someone that would respect it and understand it. I was 22 when he gave it to me and I understood, but then I started reading about it and learning. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be able to go out and live my dream. The only thing that makes me upset is that Buck [O’Neil] should be in the Hall of Fame. They asked him to speak about the importance of the Negro League and he did it, but he should have been in there. That’s the only thing that I am upset about with the Hall of Fame because that man has done more for baseball…one man, than anybody, other than Jackie Robinson. He has carried the torch for African-Americans hands down!”