Linda Cohn recalls infamous Ken Griffey Jr. ‘SportsCenter’ interview: ‘He wanted to be anywhere else’

Rich Eisen’s This Was SportsCenter podcast series has been a great opportunity to relive some of the most iconic moments from ESPN’s flagship show’s past. The latest episode, featuring longtime ESPN and SportsCenter host Linda Cohn, provided plenty of those. 

Before she became a staple of SportsCenter, Cohn got her start covering the Seattle sports scene for KIRO. Arriving in town around the same time was Ken Griffey Jr., who debuted for the Seattle Mariners in 1989. Cohn said that she enjoyed covering Griffey, whom she referred to as “my good friend,” although that wouldn’t be the case years later.

Cohn started by telling an anecdote from her days covering Griffey while pregnant in Seattle, and he came over and rubbed her belly, “when you could do that and not get in trouble.” And it was part of a great rapport the two had before she left for ESPN in 1992.

Fast-forward to 2014, and Cohn gets the chance to interview Griffey following his retirement. But this time, things weren’t so chummy.

“So, many years later… Ken Griffey Jr. did one of those, I don’t know what he was promoting, maybe baseball cards (He was indeed promoting Upper Deck),” said Cohn. “He was recently retired.”

At this point, the podcast showed a clip from the 2014 interview, in which Cohn seems downright giddy while Griffey has the sourest look on his face possible.

“We had him on live, you know, and it was me interviewing him,” she continued. “I was so excited to see him, and he wanted to be anywhere else than talking on SportsCenter to Linda Cohn.”

The podcast then kept cutting back to clips from the fateful interview, which we covered in 2014.

“He was very rude. And I was shocked,” said Cohn. “I kept my composure, but we ended the interview very quickly and moved on. And that then became an early internet sensation where he actually wanted to find my phone number and apologize to me.”

Just got off phone w Ken Griffey Jr. He apologized sincerely for how he came across in @SportsCenter int. I accepted his apology.

— Linda Cohn (@lindacohn) March 5, 2014

Griffey also offered Cohn a public apology, saying on social media that “I want to apologize to Linda for the way things went today. I was in the middle of a cough attack and felt a little ill and didn’t want to walk off the set. Linda has always been professional to me and my family . I’m sorry.”

Cohn told Eisen that while she still appreciates Griffey, the incident taught her a valuable lesson about the athletes she covers.

“I still don’t know what I did, Rich,” said Cohn. “But the lesson I learned is, you can’t put people up on pedestals, you know, because they’re human just like you.”