It's That Time Of Year Again...

...when Ken Griffey, Jr., gets a season-shortening injury. He usually waits until later in the season to do this, but, this year, he's decided to do it before spring training even starts. Yet another in a long line of Griffey injuries.

Griffey is a player whose potential talent has made him one of those Possibly The Best Player to Ever Play the Game, If Only He Played in Every Game. The thing with Griffey, though, is that, even having missed nearly four seasons worth of games due to injury, he still has had a Hall of Fame career. If he plays for four or five more years, and can remain relatively healthy, his stats will easily merit him a first-ballot Hall election.

It gets scary when you average his stats over those 500+ games he missed. He'd have a stat line pretty close to Hank Aaron's by the time he played 20 years. Yet, like Mark McGwire, who hit 580 homeruns in 500 fewer games than anyone else who's ever hit 500, his injury-riddled stats are still good enough to put him in the Hall. (Although, with McGwire, even if you average his stats out for however many fucking games you want, I still don't think he's good enough to go to the Hall. He hit homeruns. That was it.)

We'll see if Griffey can come back in time to salvage at least half a season. The last time he broke his hand, he missed almost all of the season. He'll still get into the Hall, even if he never plays another game. And that's some quality shit.