SI Vault: The 1988 Olympic Team

If anyone dares, DARES to put up articles from 1992, 1996, 2000 or 2004, I will come after you. This is my little annoying feature! MINE! MINE! ALL MINE!

Perhaps the biggest threat to the U.S.  pitchers in Seoul will be the U.S.  hitters. One slow June night during their tour of Japan , the pitchers ambushed third baseman Ed Sprague at the team hotel in Morioka, beating him, some say with straight faces, to within mere feet of his life. Sprague ‘s comrades in aluminum mounted a counterassault on the pitchers, wearing shower caps and kimonos. Since then the batsmen have given a gangland going-over to Abbott , who emerged from a shower one day to find eight guys in slicked-back hair and suits pouring out of his closets.

The Olympians go for the aggressive hit and the quick kill on the field as well. Switch-hitting second baseman Ty Griffin, the Chicago Cubs ‘ No. 1 pick, out of Georgia Tech , has set the tone from the leadoff spot. He has hit .500 with 28 RBIs, 14 steals and 9 homers in 28 games on the tour. Griffin made a name for himself in Indianapolis a year ago when he hit a ninth-inning, two-run homer to beat Cuba 6-4. It was the first Pan Am Games defeat for the Cubans in 20 years. “After that, I went back to Georgia Tech and wanted them to throw inside,” says the 6-foot, 180-pound Griffin. “I like to jerk the ball now.”

Whatever happened to the great Ty Griffin?