Griffey Takes Center Stage

SARASOTA, Fla. —  The only thing missing on this banner Monday for the Cincinnati Reds, outfielder Dmitri Young noted, were the lions, tigers and elephants. It was as if Ringling Bros. had relocated its winter home to the Cincinnati training base.

There was new owner Carl Lindner, top banana at Chiquita, pulling up in a limo as long as the Florida turnpike.

There was Deion Sanders, attempting a comeback after two years of strictly football, siphoning off some of the media mob attracted by Ken Griffey Jr.’s first spring workout with his new team.

And there was Griffey sitting on the dugout roof with his manager and general manager for an introductory news conference attended by more than 100 reporters who were to learn no new revelations from the former Seattle Mariner center fielder except that he will have to trade his blue wardrobe for red and that he does a much better job of containing his homecoming excitement than his pumped up teammates.

That’s just Junior being Junior, of course.

“Junior’s very cavalier,” shortstop Barry Larkin said. “He’s like, ‘whatever.’ But I knew he was excited when he started calling me every day again just before the trade went down, wondering what I was hearing and asking me questions about Sean [Casey] and Pokey [Reese] and some of the other guys. We were so close last year and this just puts us a step closer.”

The young Reds won 96 games last year before losing a wild-card playoff game to the New York Mets. Now they have acquired baseball’s best player without sacrificing their nucleus. After all, even Mariner President Chuck Armstrong acknowledged that his team had acquired “four guys I wouldn’t know if they walked into this room.”

In greeting Griffey on Monday, his new teammates were careful not to knock Brett Tomko, Mike Cameron and the two minor leaguers that Cincinnati General Manager Jim Bowden gave up in his leveraged steal, but there was no question that part of their excitement is that Griffey came so cheaply.

“I was surprised it went down at all,” pitcher Denny Neagle said. “You kept hearing about it all winter and I didn’t think it would happen. Pat Gillick [the Mariner general manager] never seemed satisfied with what was being offered, but as long as we didn’t have to break up the chemistry of the team and could remain competitive, that was the name of the game and that’s what we accomplished.”

The Reds, of course, held all the cards in the on-again, off-again negotiations because Griffey, eligible for free agency at the end of the 2000 season, had right of approval over a trade, told the Mariners he would approve only the Reds, and also told Larkin, the shortstop said Monday, that “he would not have come here if we had torn up the club to get him.”

Griffey, tending to prove this was not about money and all about his desire to play closer to his home, agreed to a nine-year, $116.5-million contract that includes $57 million in deferred salary and is about $30 million less than he was offered by Seattle and could have received elsewhere, but he continues to be portrayed by many in the media--and fans in his former city--as selfish and greedy.

It’s a portrayal that caused Griffey to bristle on the day that he wore the Cincinnati uniform for the first time since he was 8 and playing in a father-son game with his dad, Ken Griffey Sr., a member then of the Big Red Machine.

“People don’t understand what I’m about and all they can do is criticize,” Griffey said. “I was drafted out of high school and gave the Mariners 11 years. Things change and priorities change. I had the right to choose [where I wanted to play].

“If I wasn’t a player and wanted to move home, no one would care. They’d wish me luck. But as a player and public figure they say I’m selfish and a whiner. The Mariners gave me the opportunity to fulfill a dream. I gave them some good years in return. Now I’m home, trying to be the best father I can be and to win a championship ring with the Reds like my father did.”

Griffey spent 11 years flying to Arizona for spring training and having his belongings trucked. The drive from his Orlando home to Sarasota is only two hours. He will go back after Friday’s workout to take his son, Trey, 6, to a monster-truck show. Griffey’s grandmother and many other relatives still live in Cincinnati, where he went to school, breaking many of the Moeller High baseball records that had been set by Larkin. His homecoming has ignited the city. The Reds are now keeping their ticket office open seven days a week and have installed 10 new phone lines.

Forget revenue sharing. Griffey may single-handedly change the Reds’ small-market economics, particularly as the centerpiece of a new stadium that opens in 2003.

“He should pay for himself over the life of the contract and there’s a good chance we’ll come out ahead,” Bowden said.

Financially and artistically, perhaps, since the Reds now have a loaded lineup that features the on-base dynamics of Reese and Larkin at the top and the power of Griffey, Dante Bichette and Casey in the middle. The middle defense includes Gold Glove winners Larkin, Reese and Griffey, who was obtained with no loss of relief pitching, a pivotal aspect for Manager Jack McKeon, considering his rotation could be a weak link.

McKeon, 69, received a $400,000 raise but only a one-year extension after being named manager of the year. If his rotation is a potential trouble spot, there is one other.

Some wonder how the reunion of Griffey Jr. and Sr. will play out.

The latter, who had knee surgery in Cincinnati on Monday, is McKeon’s bench coach, but their relationship is said to be tepid at best.

Will the Griffey alliance hasten McKeon’s departure and the ascension of Griffey Sr. as manager?

How will Griffey Jr. react if the Reds elect to go in another direction (Lou Piniella, perhaps) in picking a successor to McKeon?

McKeon insists that none of those undercurrents bother him, that he’s the manager and people are just making assumptions.

“I hope that when I get tired of doing this Ken will be given the recognition and opportunity,” he said of Griffey Sr. “I’m trying to do the best I can to help him prepare.”

He wasn’t going to say otherwise on this bright and promising day at the circus.