[5][6] That same year, he was signed by the Milwaukee Brewers of the American Association before being called up as a professional baseball player on the Chicago White Sox for two months, describing his time there as having "warmed the bench".

[1][7][8] Despite not playing in any professional games, he was noted as having been an "ASU legend" for being "the first player from the school to sign a contract with a major league club".

[12] He wrote regular correspondences from the war, which were published at home, noting that he had seen a matchbox taken as a trophy inscribed "Got Mitt Uns 1916-17", and quipping that "[a]pparently the German, too, realizes that God, if he ever was with them, left them in 1918".

[13] Griffen worked for nearly 50 years in the advertising and circulation department of The Arizona Republic, a daily newspaper published in Phoenix, beginning in 1914.

[10] Republican Party leaders seeking a candidate for governor in the 1956 Arizona gubernatorial election recruited Griffen because, as one observed, "He knows everybody in the state".

[19] Also in 1967, Griffen partnered with artist Adolfo Guerrero in establishing the Arizona Decorating Company, "shouldering a major portion of the management burden".