Ken Griffey Jr. Ad: Nike Says Goodbye With Home Run Derby Commercial (VIDEO)

Ken Griffey, Jr. retired in early June, but Nike said farewell with one final ad for the baseball legend on Monday night. Fittingly, the commercial aired during the home run derby, a competition Griffey dominated three times, including a 1993 moonshot in Baltimore that left the stadium and hit a warehouse across the street.

The commercial features many home run calls from longtime Seattle Mariners announcers Dave Niehaus and Rick Rizzs, and it closes with Rizzs issuing his customary "Goodbye, baseball" tagline -- a message repeated in on-screen text, which morphs into "Hello, Cooperstown."

According to the Seattle Times, the commercial also aired on MLB Network earlier in the game.

Scroll down to watch the commercial.

WATCH:

Comments

[RandyRagoonanan]

03:15 AM on 07/14/2010

A true great, but i wonder how he felt never really being on a great baseball team

[AbeMartin]

09:02 AM on 07/14/2010

I am certain that he would have preferred having a ring to playing for the Mariners and the Reds. Lots of greats never played on a great baseball team: Walter Johnson, Ernie Banks, Don Mattingly, Paul Waner, Lloyd Waner, to name a few. The list is hundreds of players long. And how about all of the extraordinarily gifted players in the Negro Leagues who NEVER even had a chance to play in the bigs? There used to be eight teams in each league; now there are many more. The chances to play in a World Series, let alone be on a Series Winner, are growing more remote.

[Catch 22]

08:49 PM on 07/13/2010

Definitely one of the good guys.

[Eric Satterwhite]

09:01 PM on 07/13/2010

very much so. I usually dont support Nike, but sometimes they do the right thing.

[sasson]

08:37 PM on 07/13/2010

I'll be the fiftieth person to chime in with this, but Griffey was everything that was right with baseball. In an era filled with steroids, he and Frank Thomas are pretty much the only two sluggers who names have not been thrown around as users. That swing was just so beautiful, even to the very end. And finally, I've never met Griffey, I don't know him, but that ever present smile seemed as genuine as they come.

[Iehi Aour]

08:08 PM on 07/13/2010

But for those injuries, he would have re-written some record books.

[jayquintana]

07:40 PM on 07/13/2010

Love The Kid, but the commercial's lame.

[Mike Clark II]

06:22 PM on 07/13/2010

oh nike, what WONT you do to get people to buy your overpriced shoes and products?

[Seafarer61]

05:36 PM on 07/13/2010

One of the smoothest swings in the history of the game...like butter flowing down a stream of maple syrup.

[ECB]

05:30 PM on 07/13/2010

The "Kid" had one of the best swings in Baseball.

[Henny Bogan]

05:03 PM on 07/13/2010

Man, I wish he could've had a couple of good years in Seattle to wrap it all up....

[ptrgamb]

04:30 PM on 07/13/2010

One of the real greats, there's no doubt about that.

[Da-king]

04:07 PM on 07/13/2010

One of the role models of baseball, a man who respected the sport and upheld its standards till he retired, that was a fitting good bye tribute from NIke Well done!

[Murphdogg]

02:28 PM on 07/13/2010

Goodbye Junior. The sweetest swing I ever saw. But for injuries...

"For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, 'It might have been'.” - John Greenleaf Whittier

[firstcougar1]

02:03 PM on 07/13/2010

Ken Griffey Jr. is a great player who will be a first ballot Hall of Famer. He epitomized the greatness of a player who loved the game and played it the way it should be played. Coming from Seattle, he saved baseball for us and will always be loved. He is the anti-Alex Rodriguez who used drugs to amp up his play.

[Complex757]

12:48 PM on 07/13/2010

Nice tribute to a great player

[Ty LaRue]

12:41 PM on 07/13/2010

THE KID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!