From the radio this morning, it sounds like Ken Griffey Junior's tenure at Cincinnati is coming to an end. Rumor is that the White Sox are making a deal for him. Griffey's glory days were at Seattle. He just never was the impact player that the Reds were expecting. Injuries were a factor and now his age. When he came on board, fans were expecting him to put the team on his shoulders and carry them to the promised land. He never had that kind of leadership either on the field or in the clubhouse. A lot of fans resented him - but the Reds have been losing forever and Griffey is just a small part of that. The Reds have had a merry go round at General Manager, which is another problem.

On the plus side, his leaving will free up some salary that the Reds can use to acquire some younger talent.

I keep up with girls basketball and was reading in one of the newsgroups about an 8u AAU team. Thats not a misprint - it's 8 and under. I like AAU, but I think that folks are pushing this too far. At one time 10 years and under was the lowest age group. Then 9u became the lowest age group. If this trend continues, then are we going to have kindergarten teams? Toddler teams? I wonder if the kids get any value out of this at that young of an age? It has been my experience with the younger age groups that early developing kids will dominate. More from athleticism than from basketball skill.

So as you can tell, I am against this. In my opinion, AAU should make 10u the youngest age group for basketball. Personally, I think that 12u is probably the best age to start players at AAU. At that level, basketball skills can start to make a difference. And the kids are old enough to start to decide for themselves if basketball is something that they want to focus on.

Eaton - Champs of Shawnee Summer League.