Saturday, March 04, 2000

Oh Lord, please don't let Junior be misunderstood

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Ken Griffey Jr. isn't another spoiled superstar; he's just a big kid who loves baseball and his children

BY PAUL DAUGHERTY
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Ken Griffey Jr. is happiest playing baseball. (Michael E. Keating photo) | ZOOM |

        SARASOTA, Fla. — In Seattle, he'd go to movies after hours. When the last showing let out, he walked in, usually with a few Mariners teammates. If that wasn't possible, he'd go to the first show of the day, or the last show. There weren't nearly as many people then. He'd walk in after the house lights went down. He never saw the previews.

        Ken Griffey Jr. won't go to a restaurant if the parking lot is full, even if he has a reservation. He won't big-time it, either, requesting a private room or a table removed from the masses. He'll order takeout.

        When he treated the children from the Boys and Girls Clubs of Seattle to a day at Disney World, he insisted no one know they were coming. Until this year, one of his personal vehicles was a Humvee, a big reason being “people would stay out of my way.”

        On Friday, after he'd made his first game appearance as a Red, Griffey faced a small media army by the side door of the clubhouse. Given the attention he received when he arrived 11 days ago, this was barely a platoon: fifteen heathens, a few minicams. Still, he hated it.

        “I don't want to sit under a microscope,” he said.

Ken Griffey Jr. hides from a photographer before Friday's game. He'd rather not be in the media spotlight. (AP photo) | ZOOM |

        It's becoming a familiar mantra from Junior. Faced with a crowd of press, he retreats like a bat from the sunrise. Junior shrugs. Junior raises his eyebrows. Junior offers not much beyond discomfort.

        “How was it?” someone wondered.

        How was what? Playing baseball? Playing baseball was fine.

        This is not the happy-go-lucky Junior, the card-carrying member of Backward Baseball Hat Wearing Na tion. The smiling, glad presence that has been appointed to save baseball for the kids who'd rather watch basketball or the X-Games. This is happy-be-wary Junior.

        “Why can't I just go out and play?” he asks. It's more of a plea than a question. “Why can't I be normal? Why can't I just be one of the players on this team? These guys won 96 games (last year) without me. I want to come in and try to add just a little more.”

        But there is no being normal for Junior. Junior knows that; he must. He just chooses to resist it.

        After 10 minutes of this, the session ends. Griffey walks inside, away from the same old questions. I followed him, intending just to say hello and offer best wishes.

        Then the most amazing thing happened.

        He wouldn't shut up.

        Ten minutes. Twenty. Half an hour. He's talking about his dad, his kids, his contract, his kids, his teammates, his kids. I know enough about Taryn and Trey (his, um, kids) now, I feel like I should buy them birthday presents. I feel like their godfather.

        Forty minutes, and I'm looking at my watch.

        “Uh, Ken, could we wrap this up? I've got a deadline.”

        I will spare you the details of Junior's Rottweiler or the 6-month-old yellow Lab that gnaws on the expensive wooden doors of his home. You really don't need to know about Taryn's pet rabbit that was not allowed on the airplane, or Trey's birthday party at Race Rock, a theme restaurant where kids drive monster trucks and raise hell.

        He'll tell you, though. He'll tell you that and more. About his family, Junior's practically a talk-show host. Outside the clubhouse, Griffey was a petulant superstar. Inside, he was Cliff Huxtable.

        “I'm terrified of crowds,” he said, and this appears so.

        “I do it, but it's scary. Like at the All-Star Game. I'm very uncomfortable,” he said.

        This could be taken the wrong way. It has been. Junior's aloof, arrogant, spoiled. I've thought that at times myself. I was wrong.

        He hates lots of people around him who want him to talk about him. It's that simple. He doesn't want anyone on his new team to think he's all that. The Reds had a special chemistry last year, partly because nobody cared who got the credit. He wants it to stay that way.

        “I learned at an early age not to talk about myself. That's not how I was raised,” he said. “Plus, I hate crowds.”

        It's a lousy combination, hating crowds and being Junior. It's a tough line to draw in the American dirt. Here, if you are rich and famous, it's assumed you will be public and self-praising.

        Junior's trying to draw that line. Good luck to him.

        Reds publicist Rob Butcher figures he'll hold a Junior news conference before the first game of every road series. New league, new towns, much interest. Give the local media heathens 20 minutes with Junior, and be done with it.

        Well, maybe not.

        “I'll go in there,” Griffey said. He points to the training room. He means it. He said he'll hide in the training room before games, until the clubhouse is closed to press. After games, he'll stay in there until the press tires of waiting for him.

        If you can get him solo, though, he'll tell you about his kids.

        Despite the attention, the adulation and the money stacked in tall piles, Junior is just a kid. “A big kid is all,” Pokey Reese said. “A 30-year-old kid,” Jim Bowden said.

        He has been around baseball his entire life. Baseball players don't have to grow up. Enclosed in the game's cocoon, they exist in a state of perpetual adolescence. Does Pete Rose strike you as especially grown up?

        Dealing with a bunch of adults in a confined setting for an extended period of time makes kids twitchy. That's Junior at news conferences. Twitchy.

        Griffey is great with kids. “He thinks kids have pure motives,” said his agent, Brian Goldberg. A highlight of his offseason was taking Trey to school for “dad's doughnut day” and being seen as a father, not a celebrity jock.

        He doesn't just endorse video games. He plays them. If he doesn't want to grow up, no one's going to stop him.

        And away from the prying crowds, he's delightful. Just don't ask him about the dogs. Unless you've got all day.

       

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