12 Days Until Griffey Returns

Ken Griffey, Jr., the man who saved baseball in Seattle, returns for the first time June 22nd. (If you haven't bought tickets, you might want to get on that.) I'll have a Griffey post everyday until then.

Ken Griffey hit his 578th career home run last night, he's five back of Mark McGwire on the full list, and eight back of Frank Robinson on the clean list.

I decided to check out Griffey's home run log on Baseball Reference--here are some of the things I thought were interesting:

--He's hit 314 of his 577 home runs on the first pitch.
--Griffey's first multihomer game was May 30 of his rookie year, off of Jimmy Jones.
--Griffey homered off of two pitchers born in the 1940s (Charlie Hough and Nolan Ryan), and has homered off of at least one born in the 1980s (Adam Wainwright).
--To put it another way, he's homered off of pitchers born in the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter and Reagan administrations.
--He has four career walk-off home runs; only the famous '95 shot off John Wetteland came with the M's.
--David Wells has allowed more homers to Griffey than anyone: 8. The first was in 1989, it was Griffey's 3rd career homer. The last was in 2004, Griffey's 488th.
--Poor Billy Brewer allowed three homers to Griffey in only seven at bats.
--The pitcher that Griffey faced the most without homering off of is Todd Stottlemyre. Griffey had no homers in 34 at bats against him. But Roy Oswalt may soon pass Stottlemyre, Griffey's had 33 at bats vs. Oswalt without a homer.

You can buy the schedule pictured above at Gasoline Alley Antiques.