Sitting on 599 homeruns, Cincinnati Reds outfielder,Ken Griffey Jr took to the road this week with a four-game series against the Phillies in Philadelphia. Many in the media feel that the City of Brotherly Love would not embrace Griffey's milestone.
Griffey disagreed,"Naw, it's a great place, I have many great memories here in this city on the Delaware."
Interestingly enough Griffey hit his 100th, 200th, 300th, 400th and 500th homeruns all here in Philadelphia. This has only happened to one other player. Willie Mays hit all of the above numbers in St. Louis, but his 600th occurred in Toronto's Sky Dome.
"Not only is 600 big, but doing all the big ones in the same city would be truly remarkable," said Philadelphia Inquirer columnist, Kevin Cornison.
Bigger yet may be the excitement growing among Philadelphia's baseball fans. Rightfield seats in Citizens Bank Park sold out less than two hours after the Reds Sunday game ended where number 600 failed to occur.
One Phillies fan explained one scenario if he caught the ball. "If I catch number 600 I'll hope that I also catch 601 in the same game. I would then keep the real 600 and sell the 601. But I would tell people that 601 was really 600. I would later sell the real 600, but not very publicly. Does that make sense?"
Rumors that the Baseball Hall of Fame purchased all of the rightfield seats for the series in an effort to bring the ball to Cooperstown were denied.
"Buying all of those tickets and placing Hall of Fame employees in the seats all just to claim a ball is...well, it's just...not a bad idea. But something we would never do. At least not all of the seats."
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