Griffey hits No. 600 against Marlins

MIAMI (AP) Ken Griffey Jr . hit his 600th home run on Monday night, completing his long ascent and becoming the sixth player in history to reach that milestone. The Cincinnati outfielder homered off Florida lefty Mark Hendrickson in the first inning of the Reds' 9-4 victory against the Marlins. Griffey joined Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays and Sammy Sosa. The 38-year-old homered with Jerry Hairston on third and one out. The left-handed swinger launched a 3-1 pitch 413 feet into the right-field seats. Griffey received a standing ovation from the crowd of 16,003 and responded by coming out of the Reds dugout and waving his helmet to the fans. The game was the last one of an eight-game road trip for the Reds, who will return home Tuesday night to play the St. Louis Cardinals. Controversy ensued in the stands following the home run. Justin Kimball, a 25-year-old from Miami, said he caught the home run ball, put it in a wool cap and then had the cap ripped from his hands. Kimball said someone ran off with the ball. Police said they had found the fan with the baseball and would look at video tape to see if Kimball's claims could be supported. However, the Florida Marlins announced Major League Baseball had authenticated the home run ball for a middle-aged male fan who would only give his first name as Joe. Paul Bako had his first career multihomer game three-run and two-run shots and Brandon Phillips added a solo homer in support of Edinson Volquez (9-2), who gave up three runs in six innings. Griffey ended the game 1-for-4 with a strikeout and an intentional walk. He exited in the middle of the eighth. Hairston left the game in the middle of the first after suffering a fractured left thumb when stealing second. Hendrickson (7-4) allowed six runs five earned and five hits in 2 1/3 innings. Mike Jacobs homered for the Marlins. Still, the game will be remembered for Griffey's historic homer. The slugger hasn't enjoyed many golden moments since the Reds got him from Seattle in 2000. This will rank as one of his best with Cincinnati and, possibly, one of his last, given that he's in the final year of his contract. It was a long time coming. Griffey, one of baseball's most prolific sluggers before injuries began to take their toll, started the season with 593 home runs. It took 216 at-bats to make history his previous homer came May 31. Griffey hit No. 597 on April 23 at Great American Ball Park, then went 90 at-bats the second-longest drought of his career before connecting again in San Diego on May 22. He went another 29 at-bats, and even got a day off during the week to work on his swing, before hitting No. 599. Griffey went 17 at-bats between that homer and No. 600. Like his 400th and 500th, this home run came on the road. Unlike Bonds and Sosa, Griffey has stayed clear of questions about whether he came by all of his homers legitimately. His name has never come up in baseball's steroids scandal. Unlike Sosa, he's never been caught using a doctored bat. Although Junior is linked numerically with Hammerin' Hank and the Babe, he has never been defined by the home run. His game is so well-rounded that he was voted an All-Century outfielder with Seattle before his 30th birthday. By then, his backward cap and light-up smile were the face of baseball. His statistics were setting the pace, too. When Griffey was traded to his hometown team before the 2000 season, he was significantly ahead of Aaron's record home run pace. It seemed like a sure bet that when his nine-year, $116.5 million contract was wrapping up this year, he'd be the next home run king, or close to it. Then, the city would have two of its own atop baseball's revered lists Pete Rose as the hits king, Junior as the home run king. It hasn't turned out that way. Griffey hit 40 homers in his first season with the Reds, when he became the youngest to reach 400 career. Then came a succession of major injuries torn hamstrings, torn patella tendon, separated shoulder, torn ankle that knocked him way off Aaron's pace. Nearly knocked him off the map, too. The one-time superstar got booed in his hometown and overlooked in conversation about the game's best players. It took him more than four years to get to homer No. 500 in 2004. It seemed he might never make it to 600. A year later, he was back in the swing. Griffey hit 35 homers in 2005, winning the comeback player award. He followed it with 27 homers in 2006. Last season, he played in 144 games his most since 2000 and hit 30 homers, leaving him seven shy of No. 600. The Reds erected a countdown board at Great American Ball Park, and featured him on the cover of the 2008 media guide. While he closed in on the prominent power number, Griffey gave it little thought. He's never spent much time thinking about his statistics. He preferred to wait and talk about No. 600 when he got it. Until then, his personal homer list would have to speak for itself. Griffey was the youngest player in the majors still only 19 on April 10, 1989, when he homered off the Chicago White Sox 's Eric King on the first pitch he saw at Seattle's Kingdome. Homer No. 36 was one of his most satisfying. It came one batter after his father, Ken Sr., homered off California's Kirk McCaskill on Sept. 14, 1990, an unprecedented father-and-son moment in the majors. Even now, Griffey says those two seasons he spent playing with his father in Seattle were the best times of his career. And he has suggested that he would like to finish his career back there.

Posada catches five innings in simulated game

CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP) Yankees catcher Jorge Posada caught five innings and went 0-for-5 with a walk in his first extended spring training game on Monday. The five-time All-Star has been sidelined since April 27 due to a sore throwing shoulder. Posada, batting .302 with one homer and 11 RBIs in 63 at-bats, hopes to rejoin the Yankees around June 3. I got a lot of innings behind the plate, that's all I wanted, Posada said. I wanted just to get ready to catch again. Posada played catch before entering the game, and threw the ball back to the pitcher, but is not expected to start throwing to the bases until later this week. Probably Thursday or so I'll start throwing again, Posada said. I feel good enough to throw right now, but I'm taking one step at a time. First of all, get my legs underneath me and then get ready to catch, throw and doing all that. In Monday's game against Philadelphia minor leaguers, Posada hit a hard one-hopper to first and walked batting left handed. He popped out to center, hit an opposite-field drive to right that was caught at the fence, struck out and hit a hard liner to center from the right side. Posada will play in another extended spring training game Tuesday.

Gallardo's season over?

HOUSTON (AP) Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Yovani Gallardo might need surgery after tearing a ligament in his right knee trying to avoid a collision near first base Thursday. We're going to put him on the DL and bring Dave Bush back, general manager Doug Melvin said Friday. When the swelling goes down, we'll re-evaluate him, but it appears we're going to miss him for an extended period of time. The injury came in Gallardo's third start since recovering from surgery on his left knee. Gallardo was injured in the fifth inning of Thursday's game against the Cubs when he rushed toward first base to cover a slow roller by Reed Johnson . As Brewers first baseman Prince Fielder went to apply a tag, Gallardo hurdled Johnson and landed awkwardly on his right leg. Gallardo was on the ground for a few minutes, but managed to walk it off and keep pitching, completing the inning and another before leaving. Manager Ned Yost said Gallardo's pitches remained in the 89-90 mph range after the injury and the only indication there was something wrong was him slightly favoring his leg. When Yost went to the mound to ask him about that, the managers recalls him saying he didn't realize he was doing it and insisted he was fine and in no pain. The doctor stated that going out there to pitch didn't do any further damage, Melvin said. It was torn at the time, and he was able to battle his way through it. Gallardo had an MRI on Friday morning that confirmed he had a torn ligament. Gallardo joined the team in mid-April after Feb. 19 surgery to repair torn cartilage in his left knee that he injured just before training camp opened. Yost said learning of Gallardo's injury was like being punched between the eyes. It's very, very painful, Yost said. You feel sick about it. He's one of the best pitchers we've got, one of the best pitchers, we think, in the league. It's very hard because it affects everything and everybody. Gallardo started three games this season and had allowed one run before Thursday night. He gave up three against the Cubs, but two came after the injury. The 22-year-old right-hander had a solid rookie year after his midseason call-up, going 9-5 with a 3.67 ERA down the stretch last season. Bush, who was sent to Triple-A Nashville on Sunday, made three starts before Gallardo returned from his left knee surgery, but was ineffective going 0-3 with a 6.75 ERA.