I usually don’t write about being “happy” or “liking” things, but the word of Ken Griffey Jr’s imminent return to the Seattle Mariners — pending a physical this weekend — is making me feel… what is this?  Nostalgia? Wow, what a feeling.  I can see why Baby Boomers are such self-indulgent dicks.

It was almost 20 years ago that I began collecting everything and anything Griffey — baseball cards, posters, t-shirts, even the crappy candy bars that bore his visage — and I did it all while living outside a pair of NL towns (Philly and St. Louis) before interleague play or the internet.  I lived to read box scores, and I cursed the Eastern time zone for late games.  But in the span of just a couple years, major league baseball had a strike, Griffey left for Cincinnati, the steroid scandal exploded, and before I knew it I liked football better than baseball.  Which is fine.  We get older; our tastes change.

I know that Griffey’s old now.  I know that he’s useless in the field and can only help the team as a DH.  And I don’t care.  I’m going to watch more baseball this summer than I have in a decade.  For nine innings at a time, I’m going to feel a little younger.  Here’s hoping Junior will, too.