[Terry D]

Mike Griffin was one of the many young players who had the bad luck to come up to the majors with the Yankees during the worst of the Steinbrenner era. Like so many, Griffin was damaged by that experience and never really recovered. A tall, lanky righthander who had originally signed with Texas, he was thrown into the fire of the Yankee rotation in 1980. When he did not turn into a star overnight (2-4, 4.83 in 13 games) Steinbrenner publicly humiliated Griffin by calling him a "morning glory." Griffin battled back, though, and he opened the 1981 season pitching pretty well out of the AAA Columbus bullpen and in a couple of games for the big team. The Yankees rewarded Griffin by sending him to the Cubs along with Doug Bird and I think Pat Tabler for Rick Reuschel. No doubt somewhat shaken by going from one of the best teams in the majors to one of the worst, Griffin pitched just so-so for the Cubs (2-5, 4.50) . He was a nomad after that.The Padres gave him a couple of innings in '82 and he surfaced with the pitching poor 1987 Orioles. Griffin also spent time in the Montreal, Kansas City, and Texas organizations before a final major league bow with the Reds in 1989 (12.46 ERA in 4.1 innings). To tell the truth, I am not sure how good a pitcher Griffin was or could have been. He had quite good numbers in AAA and AA in '79, which was what got him to New York, but he did not achieve any kind of consistency with ERA or K/W until relatively late in his minor league career. Griffin was actually very good for AAA Indianapolis in '89 (2.30, 6 saves in 74.1 IP) but by then he was no longer young and Bill James assessed his chances of staying in the majors as "slim and none." I have to think that Griffin could have reached his potential earlier if the Yankees of those years had any idea how to develop a young pitcher. Anyway, I finally found him on the Ebay page of signatures4u, so here is another one we can finally cross off. You're welcome.