Guidant Financial Group Blog

With the Washington Mutual Tower begging for renters and local giants Microsoft and Starbuck’s announcing significant lay-offs and cut-backs, there’s not much hope for a quick economic recovery in Seattle. However, a glimmer of hope sparkles for the Emerald City economy as Ken Griffey Jr. signed yesterday with the Seattle Mariners for 2009 season. Having Griffey back is going to create an economic bump in the SoDo area of Seattle where the Mariner’s Safeco field was nicknamed “The House that Griffey Built.”

Griffey committed to come back to the Mariners where he created his hall-of-fame career. This last minute decision shocked jock-pundits across the US. Griffey made a verbal commitment to play for the Atlanta braves just days earlier. The Braves would have been a lot closer to his family in Florida, and would have put him on a team that has a much better shot at a pennant run than the scurvy ridden Mariners. But fortunately for Seattleites the idea of “Legacy” trumped all.

It’s rumored that close friend of Griffey, golden-glover Harold Reynolds lobbied hard to get Griffey to finish his career in the city that he started in. Allegedly what pushed Griffey over the edge in returning to Seattle was a phone call from Griffey’s hero (and the reason he originally dawned number 24) Willie Mays. Apparently Reynolds talked to Mays and Mays put in a call. Although the details of the conversation haven’t been disclosed, the theme was: Legacy.