We here at TBL are kind of in the tank for Ken Griffey Jr. He was one of the most electrifying athletes in all of sports in the early 1990s, we have doubles of his Upper Deck rookie card (score!), and he’s always seemed like a pleasant enough fellow.

Until, of course, media members turn into assholes. That’s apparently what went down in the Reds clubhouse this afternoon, according to a blog item over at Cincinnati.com:

Ken Griffey Jr. got into a bit of a confrontation with a writer in the visitors’ clubhouse at Wrigley.

Griffey was talking to a Nike rep. Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Light, came up and asked for a few minutes. Bissinger is working on something for the New York Times.

Griffey said he was having a conversation. Bissinger said he only had 20 minutes. Griffey basically said too bad. Bissinger said “you’re not worth it” or words to that effect and walked away.

Griffey followed him and said some not so nice things. “You disrespected me,” was all I heard clearly.

The whole thing was over in a minute or two.

Before you ask if we’re torn due to the Friday Night Lights aspect of this flare-up, it should be noted - we haven’t seen the movie, and it’s the TV show that we lust for every Wednesday. So like the blogger in question, we’ll have to side with Griffey, though we’d love to hear Bissinger’s side of the story. We love a good writer-athlete skirmish, but we still have a difficult time believing a writer would tell Griffey, ‘you’re not worth it.’ At any rate, here’s hoping Griffey uses the second sweetest swing in baseball (David Ortiz) to knock two out of the park tonight.

Junior v. Writer (Not Me) (Cincinnati.com)