Junior

This is semiserious business. Just semiserious. That's because to Ken Griffey Jr., nothing is completely serious. He won't allow it to be.

Serious is too scary. Serious is too big and threatening. Serious makes you think about your place in sports history. Your role in society. Your responsibility to your talent. The hopes of your parents. The investments of your corporate endorsers. The world title fantasies of Seattle fans. And the World Series rings your teammates crave. Serious is 62 home runs in a season, or 756 in a career.

That kind of seriousness can turn deadly. It can even kill you. Or, in Griffey's case, lead you to try to kill yourself.

When Griffey was ten years old, his mother had to take his birth certificate to youth league games to prove that although he was too good for the other children, he wasn't too old for the team. When opposing parents cursed him up there on the pitcher's mound, his mother told him to strike out the side. Make 'em scream even louder.

When Griffey was 12, his father--Ken Sr.--showed the family the swollen scar on his knee from his recent surgery. Dad would be out of the New York Yankees lineup for a while. In the backyard, Junior still pitched to the gimpy Senior, but the boy, his arm now strong and his fastball alive, carefully kept the ball on the outside corner. "Inside, come inside," Dad yelled. Finally, Junior did, and hit his father full force on the surgical incision. The son broke down in tears. The father stood up. "That didn't hurt," he said. The game continued, and the son threw as hard as he could. Inside.

When Griffey was 15, he popped out, threw a tantrum and told his mother he'd never play baseball again. Current mythology has it that the boy had never before made an out of any kind in an organized game. Be that as it may, the mother says that she told her son, "It's OK. Your dad makes outs all the time." "I'm not my dad," said Griffey Jr. "I don't make outs."

When Griffey was 17, right out of high school, he went to Bellingham, Washington in the Northwest League. He had been drafted number one in the nation by the Seattle Mariners. Scouts called him "the best baseball prospect ever." He was compared to Willie Mays as a fleet center fielder, and wore the same number, 24. He was compared to Ted Williams as a six-foot-three, left-handed hitter with a swing so perfect--long, yet quick--that even on videotape nobody could find a flaw. And he was compared to Hank Aaron because, clearly, he would end up in the major leagues by the age of 20.

Williams was "the Kid." Mays had been the "Say Hey Kid." At Bellingham, Griffey slugged over .600 and was called "the Kid," the kind of nickname that gets bestowed perhaps once a generation.

Griffey, then 18, went home from Bellingham and tried to kill himself. He took a couple hundred aspirin. In the emergency room he said, "I was 27 points above critical."

Griffey recalled the incident several years ago, on the only occasion he has ever talked publicly about the suicide attempt. Why had he done it? "I felt like everybody was yelling at me," he said. Then again, maybe the voices were only in his head--internal incarnations of all the coaches, scouts, friends and family who expected so much of him on a baseball field. Always yelling at him, in his own mind, to break every record in the books.

Since then, Ken Griffey Jr., now 28, has taken baseball semiseriously. That is to say, he has loved it with all his heart but, ultimately, he has not taken it to heart. He has studied it, but hasn't let it monopolize his mind. He will dance with baseball but won't slow dance.

That line of defense is essential when, in fact, everybody does yell at you almost all the time, telling you to hit those 62 home runs--not just 56, as Griffey did last year. To win the Most Valuable Player award--not once, as he did last season, but several times, as an immortal should. To win the World Series--not just make the playoffs. "What's wrong with you, Junior? Why can't you carry baseball--old, slow, disorganized baseball--on your back, as Michael Jordan has done with basketball? You have the talent, the smile, the youth, the popularity. It's so easy for you. Everybody can see that. Just try harder. What's your problem, Kid?"

So now you know why Ken Griffey Jr. wears his hat backward.

In batting practice, in TV commercials and even in the locker room, that cap is always spun around, like that of a mischievous teenager who's slacking. Some other players do it occasionally, perhaps imitating him. But Griffey does it constantly. It's his trademark as well as his talisman. If he allows his game to be fun--if he lets his life be fun--he can have both success and joy. In a family full of high standards, one mantra was paramount: Be the best, but have fun doing it. Otherwise, what's the point? As he has grown, the Kid has learned that to be his best, he has to stay a kid. A Junior as serious as that other Junior, Cal Ripken, might explode.

Our entire culture--especially the grinding, dutiful, stats-obsessed, 162-games-a-season religion of baseball--conspires to mess with Griffey's hat. He knows that if he turns his cap around for too long--if he takes his job, his talent and his celebrity too earnestly--the pressure of expectation may eat him(continued on page 126)Junior(continued from page 120) alive. Once, it almost did.

"He lives in a world of 'supposed to be,'" says Mariners pitcher Jamie Moyer. "People are always projecting their expectations onto him. That is something continually drilled into him. It's hard to fathom. Try to put yourself in that situation."

So that homely homey hat is Griffey's reminder to himself of the value--the life-preserving, joy-saving, talent-releasing power--of semiseriousness in a dead-serious world.

As they say in the dugout, Junior's go t aright to wear his fucking hat backward. And nobody gets to say shit about it.

•

Four hours before game time, Griffey sits in the middle of the Mariners locker room, playing cards. His hat is backward, a diamond stud in one ear. He clamps his poker hand to his chest, like a kid, so nobody can peek. A teammate walks past and gives him a hug and a wet kiss on the cheek. "Your wife's in town. You don't need me," snaps Griffey. "No homosexual tendencies this trip."

For the next hour, Griffey has similar agitating encounters with teammate after teammate. Exaggeration and insult are the coin of the locker room. In baseball, the degree to which you enjoy the game is directly related to how well you can turn six months of dead time into idle smartass pleasure.

Alex Rodriguez sneaks up behind the card game and clamps his hands over Griffey's eyes.

"Who?" Rodriguez asks.

"It's Alex," Griffey says immediately.

"How did you know?" asks Rodriguez, surprised that one word gave him away.

"No bass yet," says Griffey to the 22-year-old All-Star shortstop. "When you get to 23, that's when the bass tone gets in your voice."

Everybody cackles at Rodriguez. Round to Griffey.

Minutes later, slugger Jay Buhner catches Griffey leaning back in his folding chair and grabs him hard by the shoulder. The shaven-headed, bearded Buhner, who looks like some huge harpooner, almost flips Griffey backward onto the concrete floor. Griffey's eyes get big. He's not just surprised, he's scared. But Buhner stops the fall and catches him. Now the laughter is aimed at Griffey. Round to Buhner.

"These people don't realize what big hands they have, always hittin' me," says Griffey, playing for pity that he won't get.

"How ya feelin', Junior?" asks another Mariner.

"I'm playing with a bad leg," growls Griffey. "Something you wouldn't know about." Truth in jest? A star making a point? Either way, a round to Griffey.

No one anywhere could be more comfortable than Griffey is in a big-league locker room. He wasn't born there, but as the son of a 19-season veteran, he grew up there. He knows every trick, gag and nuance. It's his natural habitat. Everything is raw material. The TV news, a kind of locker-room night-light for big-league millionaires, shows a cop busting some nut with a knife.

"Remember the crazy guy in traffic in Seattle?" Griffey says, standing up to demonstrate. "He had a samurai sword. The cops are shooting sandbags at him to knock him out. He stands up there in the middle of the street like he's in a batter's box, with the sword for a bat. He hits the first bag right-handed. Then he turns around and hits the next bag lefty."

A switch-hitting lunatic. "They finally hosed him down."

In many clubhouses, a team's star dresses in the corner, so he can have privacy. Griffey's cubicle is in the middle of the locker room so he can have friends. As he watches a golf tournament on TV, teammates drift by to hear his stories. They know he plays with Tiger Woods, Mark O'Meara and Michael Jordan.

"Golfers are crazy," says Griffey. "They have expressions for everything. Hit it in the water, that's a 'turtle.' Three-putt, that's a 'snake.' In the sand, that's an 'Omar,' 'cause you're in the desert more than Omar Sharif. In the woods is a 'Keebler,' 'cause you gotta chip out. You think you're doing OK, then you find out you're down a turtle, two snakes and an Omar. They just laugh at you and say, Pay to learn.' "

"What's Payne Stewart like?" asks a Mariner.

"The first time I played with him, he wore false teeth," says Griffey. "They were crooked and ugly, and realistic enough so you'd think they were his real teeth. On the 18th green, Payne took them out and said, 'Why didn't you say anything about my teeth, man?' I told him, 'I've seen your big house on the lake. If you got that much money, the first thing you would do is fix those teeth. Don't try to pull rookie tricks on me.'

"Mr. Floyd asked me to play in his pro-am," adds Griffey, referring to Ray Floyd. "I practiced every day for a month. I was so nervous. In baseball, if it's foul, it's foul. In golf, if you hit it foul, you re-tee. And people are muttering, 'Man, you ain't no good.' "

Griffey's manner is so easy you might mistake him for a soft touch. But he's not. A TV guy asks for an interview--but he does it wrong. He's polite.

"I don't do TV," snaps Griffey.

The TV guy backs away; he's failed his test. Round to Griffey. Soon, another TV guy appears. This one's a pro. He challenges Griffey to a golf match the next day. Got it all set up. Going to clean Junior's pockets.

"Lou Piniella gave me the scouting report on you," says Griffey. "Lost it. Game's gone. Left it in Lost Wages."

"Got two minutes for a live shot?" the TV guy asks casually.

"That'll work," says Griffey.

Every team has a tone, usually set by a few dominant personalities. As a child, Griffey was exposed to two of the funniest, vainest, sharpest-tongued locker rooms in sports--those of the Seventies' Cincinnati Reds and the Eighties' New York Yankees. Those were caste-system clubhouses with an undercurrent of meanness. Pete Rose and Graig Nettles could say whatever they wanted--but sometimes Merv Rettenmund and Butch Wynegar couldn't.

The Mariners clubhouse has the same edge, but with a kinder side. Says Moyer, who has played for six big-league teams: "Junior allows you to ride him. He can give it. But you may give it, too. To him, this is like being at home."

Out of the corner of his eye, Griffey sees some horseplay between players and a woman reporter. "That's harassment," he says, half to himself but loud enough to be overheard. "Wrap that thing around your waist." Towels are put back on.

"I have to know everything that's going on around me," says Griffey, "just in case I don't want to be there when things go bad. You can't let yourself be seen in certain situations. The way it'll come out is, 'Griffey and some others were involved in. ...' My dad told me, 'If you get in trouble, get in trouble by yourself. Don't let somebody else get you in trouble.' "

(continued on page 142)Junior(continued from page 126)

•

Most of the time Ken Griffey Jr. is happy. He's having just as much fun as it appears he is. "Griffey loves to play the game," says former Orioles manager Davey Johnson. "It shows, and that's pleasant to see." The expectations that sit on his shoulders like gargoyles--and the occasional eruptions and tantrums that are part of his nature--are usually quickly forgotten. That's because he has his father's baseball temperament.

Unlike almost every other eminent athlete in modern American sports, Griffey doesn't fully embrace his superstardom. That makes him powerfully appealing to some, but enigmatic to others. Perhaps he's relatively unimpressed with himself because as a kid, he was on a first-name basis with such stars as Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Tom Seaver, Tony Perez, Dave Winfield, Tommy John, Graig Nettles, Ron Guidry, Don Mattingly, Rickey Henderson, Phil Niekro and, of course, Ken Griffey Sr.

Junior's dad had more hits (2143) than Bench, more steals (200) than Rose, more runs scored (1129) than Mattingly, a higher career batting average (.296) than Henderson and more World Series rings (three) than Niekro. Senior, the MVP of the 1980 All-Star Game, was big time.

So baseball--and even being a baseball star--was never anything more than the family business to Junior. Lee May, who hit 354 homers, was just a Cincinnati neighbor from down the street when Junior was growing up. "Lee's head looks like a lightbulb," says Junior. "You know, square on the bottom, then a big bulb on top. So, I call him 100 Watt. Lee's son is 50 Watt. And his grandson is 25 Watt." So much for the mystique of legendary ballplayers.

Junior wasn't haunted by his father's failures nor driven by his demands. Maybe you had to know Senior back then to understand the source of Junior's spontaneous high spirits. Nobody in baseball had a more explosive, unrestrained smile, or less self-importance, than Senior. He was always semiserious, too. He studied the game; he played hurt and went into walls. But most of the time, he just liked to laugh. In winter ball in Puerto Rico in the Seventies, Griffey and Danny Driessen would be in the batting cage when one of them would begin laughing about something silly and the other would catch on. Once they started, neither could stop laughing. They were like ten-year-olds. "Now come on, mahn," Driessen would say--and that would really set off Griffey, who'd raise his laugh an octave. Reporters would go off and interview somebody, then come back and Griffey and Driessen would still be eyeing each other, worried that one of them would crack up and start the whole lunatic cycle again.

When Junior says, around a ballpark, "I am my father," you can believe it. And when he says his father taught him only two rules to live by in baseball, you can believe that, too.

Rule one: Don't show up anybody on the field.

Rule two: Have fun.

That was it. Don't you wish it were that easy to teach your kid the family business?

The senior Griffey kept his ambition concealed behind his grin. But his eyes could get hard. And batting slumps drove him crazy. You could tell if he was hot or not just by his demeanor.

"We're all like that," says Junior. "We may not look it on the outside, but O-for-fours are hard and O-for-fives are extremely tough."

Going five at bats without a hit is "extremely tough"? Most players don't even notice a few bad games.

"My dad told us that to be the best, you have to be four times better than anybody else," says Griffey. "He didn't care what you did, as long as you were the best. He grew up that way."

Was the overcompensation because his dad was black? "No," says Griffey, "It was because he was from a small town, Donora, Pennsylvania."

As with father, so with son. The grin is real, but so is the self-imposed pressure beneath it: to be not just better but four times better than anybody else.

"My father has my attitude. I may not look it, but I concentrate so much that sometimes I don't hear people who are in the same room. I block out everything. My wife will talk to me, then refuses to believe I haven't heard her."

Off the field, Junior is his mother's son. Like so many children of big-leaguers, Griffey's memories are of a father who wasn't there. Perhaps the longest the two have ever spent in each other's company was during the 1990 and 1991 seasons, when they became the first father-son combination to play for the same team--Junior in center field and Senior in left. "It was six weeks and he couldn't go anywhere. I had him," says Junior. "We were teammates at the ballpark and father and son at home."

For most of his growing up, however, Alberta "Birdie" Griffey was the boss. "We were spoiled," says Griffey of himself and his brother Craig, who has played for the Reds and Mariners organizations. "But not to the point where we didn't know what was right and wrong. I knew who was the boss. That wasn't a question at my house. It's still not a question. My mom used to say, 'I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.'

"Then my dad would say, 'And we can make another one who looks just like you, so we won't miss you.' "

Even though Griffey makes $8.5 million a year and has a wife and two young children, his mom still gets in her licks. "If I get out of line," says Junior, "she still says, 'You can be seven-foot-six but I will stand on a chair and look you in the eye and tell you what I think.' "

•

If Alberta Griffey had been at the 1997 All-Star Game, she would have given her son an earful. After a late-night flight, Griffey looked exhausted. But because he'd received more All-Star votes than any other player, and because he had 30 home runs at the break, he had to talk.

"I'm the Rodney Dangerfield of baseball. I'm well liked but not respected," said Griffey in a whine that made him sound like a spoiled, well-to-do child who'd forgotten how everyone else lives. "No matter what I do, that's what I'm supposed to do, and it's never quite enough. I could hit 55 homers and people would think I should hit 70. I went ten games without a home run and it was all over ESPN. People think it's easy for me--but it ain't easy."

For Griffey, this is about as bad as it gets. Sometimes he lets the world reach into his head and mess with him. Instead of counting his blessings and enjoying his gifts, he listens to the wrong people. Soul philosopher James Brown once said, "Some people don't want you happy, but they won't come right out and say it."

Could he have meant Barry Bonds?

"You can't just go to the All-Star Game every year because you're the fans' favorite, like Griffey," says Bonds, the three-time National League MVP. "He's got all the endorsements in the world. He's got everything. But don't think he has got what he should get. He needs to take over the league, like he has the ability to do. Get those 60 home runs out of the way, so everyone can stop talking about it. Win some MVPs. Quit letting people sneak by him to have a slightly better year. Junior has the ability to accomplish things nobody else will ever be able to accomplish.

"In fact, I've never seen anybody like him--besides myself," Bonds adds. "I took the game to another level. But Junior can take it to a level beyond that."

That is exactly what Griffey doesn't need to hear. It's expectation, raised to the nth degree. Get those 60 homers out of the way. Win some MVPs. Piece of cake. You'd almost think Bonds was intentionally piling on the pressure.

If Griffey is the best-liked star in baseball, Bonds may be the least favored. Junior's face shines. He plays best when fueled by joy. Barry's face often turns sour. He feeds off anger. Yet they have been friends for 11 years. When Griffey was 17, Bonds, then 23 and already in the majors, sought out the Kid--for dinner and advice. An odd couple, indeed.

Both are the sons of superior players. Barry's father, Bobby--always smart but sometimes angry--hit 332 homers and stole 461 bases, yet he bounced among eight teams in his last eight seasons. And both sons were raised with the possibility that they would become baseball giants. Now, Griffey and Bonds have ended as finalists in the Best All-Round Player in Baseball debate.

Like his father, Barry has a world-weary wisdom and an acute view of those around him. Unfortunately, like his father, he's also sensitive to criticism. Barry plays best when he's trying to prove something. Griffey excels when he tries to prove nothing--except what a neat deal it is to play ball every day.

This contrast seems most stark when we examine Griffey's take on hitting 62 home runs. What wouldn't Bonds give to have this record of records to shove in his critics' faces? Griffey, meanwhile, couldn't care less. It's even possible he'd rather not own the record, and the expectations that go with it.

"You never heard those expectations come from me--the 61 home runs, the 150 RBI," says Griffey. "I don't care about hitting home runs. My dad always said, 'If you hit 50 homers, that's 50 hits. What are you going to do the other 600 at bats?' But that's all people want to see--the home runs.

"In 20 or 30 years, they're not going to think about a particular number. Like when people look back at Willie Mays, they just say, 'Willie had a great year.' They don't say he had exactly so many home runs or RBI.

"I don't really talk much about myself. I don't think I'm the best player. I don't worry about it. I just want to go out and play. And tomorrow, I can always improve."

Focusing on the results--and on the process that creates those results--can produce spectacular careers. But athletes who concentrate just on the process are usually far more content. Play free association with Griffey and this is what you get:

Babe Ruth. "He had fun."

Roger Maris. "His hair fell out." Griffey likes his hair.

Almost everything about Griffey impresses, even awes, other big-leaguers.

"He has the perfect swing," says teammate Edgar Martinez.

"He looks locked-in on every pitch--it seems effortless, like batting practice," says Mike Piazza of the Dodgers.

A few years ago, manager Piniella would nag, "I need more. You can give me more." But now he says, "He's the total package. He makes things happen so gracefully. But first and foremost, he is a slugger."

Griffey's power amazes his peers but mystifies many fans. Perhaps they never saw enough of Ted Williams, the Splendid Splinter, who hit 521 home runs despite his tall, slender build.

"I don't lift weights," says Griffey. "Never have. I probably can't bench-press 200 pounds. The barrel of my bat is probably bigger than my biceps. Flexibility is the key. Look at Tiger Woods. It's the rubber-band effect. Pull them suckers way back."

Coaches love to analyze the Griffey method. His swing plane is slightly upward, like Williams', not the downward chop taught by some of today's swing instructors. Yet Griffey, like a fine golfer, keeps the bat going "down the line" longer than most hitters do. In golf, that means accuracy. In baseball, it means you can be fooled by a pitch--mistime it by a foot in the hitting zone--yet still nail it squarely.

While other hitters study tapes and keep files on pitchers, Griffey's big breakthrough in hitting theory is to have somebody on his team sneak up behind him and grab his bat while he's in his stance beside the batting cage. Honest.

"If somebody grabs the barrel of the bat when it's behind your head, can you tell where his hand is on the bat? On the end? On the label? On the sweet spot? Knowing where the barrel is--that's half the battle," says Griffey.

"Can you deliver the barrel to the ball? If you don't have a feeling for where the barrel is, how can you keep from getting jammed? If I wrap the bat too far behind, sometimes I lose the feel."

Above all, Griffey has a swing that's compact on the back end--before the ball is hit--but long and fully extended after contact. That's perfect golf theory, too. No wonder he likes to play long drive with Tiger. "Quick and short to the ball, but extended to a high finish--like a boxer throwing a punch through his target," says former Orioles coach John Stearns. "It's perfect."

"Griffey has earned the right to have everybody in the game compare other great players to him. He's the measuring stick," continues Stearns. "He's only 28 and has almost 300 homers. He hits 45 a year. So in ten years, he could have 700--and he'd be only 38. A hundred years from now, people are going to talk about Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Ken Griffey Jr. We're watching history. His numbers are going to stand forever."

Maybe. The player people often forget to mention--Hank Aaron--got his 755 homers not only because he was great but also because he played the game with control. He didn't dive recklessly, collide with catchers or, especially, run into outfield walls. He played hard, but not flat-out. Griffey, however, lives for the highlight film--the third-deck home run, the climb-the-fence catch, the heroic throw. He has every skill. To the max. Those eight Gold Gloves and his tape-measure blasts mean more to him than mere stats.

But he pays a price. In 1996, he broke a bone in his right wrist simply by swinging and missing. You do that when you try to hit the ball 500 feet--as Griffey has--even though 400 feet usually suffices. They put that B&O Warehouse out beyond the right field wall of Baltimore's Camden Yards for a reason--the same reason they have a fifth deck at the Skydome and those waterfalls in Kansas City. It's so somebody, every decade or so, can hit one there. And Junior wants that somebody to be him.

Even worse for Griffey is the lure of the amazing outfield catch. It's the one play in baseball that, for acrobatics, danger and breathtaking personal signature, is the diamond equal to the best slam dunks in the NBA. It's the one time Griffey can prove that a star in staid old baseball is every bit as pure and courageous as anyone else in sports. Nobody goes to the wall, and above it, like Griffey. And he pays for that, too.

On May 26, 1995 Griffey almost ended his career. He made an amazing catch, which has been replayed endlessly, to rob Kevin Bass of an extra-base hit. Then he smashed his left wrist to smithereens on the Kingdome wall. It wasn't even an important play in a close game. It was simply a chance for art to be created. Griffey broke both major bones in his wrist, underwent three hours of surgery the next day and had a four-inch metal plate and seven screws inserted in his wrist.

"I had never had surgery before," Griffey recalls. "All I asked the doctor was, 'Will I play again?'

"He said, 'Yeah.' That's all I needed to hear."

Griffey came back in time to face the Yanks in the playoffs. He didn't do much. He hit only five homers in five games--tying Reggie Jackson's postseason record.

"People don't realize what I deal with on a day-to-day basis," says Griffey. "I break both wrists and when I go back out there, it's supposed to be like I was never hurt."

That's the voice of the whining, get-no-respect Griffey. But it's also a voice that begs the question: Why does a guy who really might hit 800 homers on cruise control take such risks?

Because that's the way a guy with his hat on backward would play it. That's the joyful, go-with-the-flow approach. And for Griffey, it's also the less scary approach to the game. For him, there is something more frightening than smashing his wrist on a wall: What if Griffey didn't run into walls, dive for every catch and swing for the waterfalls? What would that mean?

It would mean that you and your talent--those 62 homers in 1999 or 2001, and that 756th home run in 2008 or 2010--are so serious, so important, so defining of who you are and how you must act, that you are a prisoner inside the walls of your own life. It's not enough that you're the ballplayer son of a ballplayer, and that you've never thought of being anything but a ballplayer. Now you can't even chase a goddamn fly ball, climb a wall, maybe break a bone, because you're too precious, too essential, too much the franchise to take the risk.

So don't count those 756 homers too fast. It's possible that Griffey, deep down, doesn't want them and will find a way not to get them. Every suicide is a murder. Who does Ken Griffey Jr. want to kill?

"The only person you measure yourself by is you." he says. "I have to play the only way I know how to play, and whatever happens, happens. This is only a small part of my life. How long can one play? Thirteen years?"

That would be 2001, when Griffey is only 31. You might want to write down the date, then watch Griffey now, while he's hitting 50 homers, winning Gold Gloves, wearing his hat backward and, against all odds, being himself while enduring the suffocating expectations of his sport.

•

Many great athletes go through a sweet spot in their careers when almost all publicity turns to gold. The parts of them that glitter seem to catch the light, and what's in shadow stays hidden. That's where Griffey is right now.

In his early seasons in the majors, Griffey seemed to be nagged constantly by his elders. And they had reason. Why did he ignore scouting reports on future pitchers? Why did he jake on routine grounders? Why did he sometimes play entire games with his mind seemingly somewhere else? Why did he once lose his temper and give the finger to the Tigers' dugout as he rounded third after a home run? And why did he occasionally pop off at Mariners management for not spending enough to surround him with quality teammates?

Time, as well as dramatically increased home run totals, has a tendency to change our perceptions. Once, there were plenty of anecdotes and quotes about Griffey, the incipient spoiled brat, the kid who showed up for his first spring training in a BMW. Now, it would take a subpoena, and truth serum to get many people in baseball to rip Junior.

First, his power production increased. He hit 45 homers in 1993. That got some folks off his back. Then, in 1994, the strike robbed him of a chance at the Maris record. In only 111 games he hit 40 homers--a pace for 58 in 160 games. Suddenly, Griffey got the sympathy accorded to a victim. Then, in 1995, his terrifying wrist injury showed everybody how hard he played, what risks he took and how precious he was to baseball's future marketing. He was, in short, irreplaceable.

In 1997 he won his first MVP award. In the past two seasons Griffey has hit 49 and 56 homers while piling up 140 and 147 RBI. When you also hit 300, win the Gold Glove and have your cheerful smile plastered on enough TV commercials to pull in $4 million a year in endorsements, your image is pretty much bulletproof. What we have here is a player who over the past five seasons has hit 207 homers in 636 games. That's an average of 53 homers per 162 games. Face it, the Kid isn't just the bomb. When it comes to homers, a healthy Junior is the Babe.

Still, Griffey's flaw is that he's not Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods. Like them, he has the looks, smile, polish, talent and style to sell a sport. When they play golf together, you wonder who on earth could make it a fourth. Yet Air and Tiger are money magnets for their games. Griffey isn't, largely because he doesn't want to be.

"When I'm in dress clothes and don't have on a baseball hat, I look a lot different," says Griffey, who wears little jewelry, usually dons subdued black-and-white outfits and often carries a briefcase, further modifying his look. "When I go out in public, few people recognize me. The majority of the time, I can slide."

Neither Jordan nor Woods wants to slide. They have an adult sense of responsibility that costs them plenty in time and aggravation. Griffey doesn't have that. Or, to be fair, he has it only when the mood strikes him.

•

When Griffey met his future wife, Melissa, he was in the major leagues but still living in a bachelor pad. "Everything was leather. No pictures on the walls, except the ones that come in the frames. A girl comes over and asks, 'Who are these people? Your family?' And you say, 'I don't know. They just came with the frame.' "

The license plate on one of Griffey's five cars says fear no one. But to those who have known him longest, that motto should be Trust no one. Or, at least, don't trust anyone too much. Just how cautious is Ken Griffey? Until last year, he kept every cent of his money--millions of dollars--in a savings account. He passed up potential profits from investments because "I just didn't trust anybody."

In romance, Griffey was equally careful. With a thousand gold diggers perpetually outside the clubhouse, he was on guard. "I was always taught," Griffey says, "that you have to find a girl who loves you for you, not for your money."

Griffey thought that would be difficult, but then he got lucky. At an under-21 club, a girl named Melissa asked him to dance. That impressed him--he usually did the asking. When she added, "You don't have to," he liked that, too. When they danced, "She was all over me. I was kind of backing up the whole time," he says now, laughing at himself. "I don't like people touching me."

A lot of major-league ballplayers have difficulty judging the motives of women. "You can tell the guys in baseball who are going to go bankrupt. That's not going to be me," says Junior. "You know, 'Wife spends the money. Griffey goes bankrupt.' "

Griffey was used to seeing his mother show up at the park dressed casually. "What was she going to do," he muses, "chase two kids while wearing pumps?" Likewise, Melissa went to the park dressed like a normal human being. That's to say, without a fur coat and enough jewelry for a formal ball.

"Most of the other wives and girlfriends dressed, you know, to make sure everybody knew their men were on the field," says Griffey.

After one such ballpark appearance, Melissa cried and told Griffey, "I don't feel like I belong."

To Griffey, that was good. "I told her, 'You're dressed like your bank account. They're dressed like their husbands' bank accounts.' "

At 28, Griffey no longer wonders if he'll ever find a woman who really loves him and who will give him a family like the one in which he grew up.

"My wife went through all the tests and she passed them," he says. "If she spends $5000 a year on herself, that's a lot. She's not a typical baseball wife."

She doesn't give interviews about her husband, either.

Melissa's mother died of heart failure two days after the 1997 All-Star Game. She was 54. Though the worst pain was Melissa's, perhaps it's to Griffey's credit that he went into a slump for the rest of July--hitting only two home runs. As a footnote to history, that may have cost him a shot at Maris' record.

Baseball lives are hard to evaluate, especially in their early stages. The strains and excesses of the lifestyle can hardly be exaggerated. The personality with which you arrived can change while you're not watching. You can misplace your soul easier than a pair of cuff links.

But Griffey is more solidly grounded than most. Sometimes he even says things that might be wise. He seems sincere when he says of his money, "I can't spend it all. Why try? How much is enough?"

Ultimately, the Griffeys are about family. Now they have a son, Trey, who's four, and a daughter, Taryn, who's two and a half. Junior is hooked on fatherhood and family. He reads dinosaur books at bedtime and drives Trey to preschool. There won't be a Ken Griffey III. But there is Trey. That's Junior's way of continuing the tradition. The kid has a chance, if the grandparents don't ruin him.

"My mom has a white couch--we weren't even allowed in that room. Well, Trey went in there with a blue Sharpie pen." The toddler nailed everything in the room, couch included. "When I saw it, I was like, 'I'm sorry, Mom. Beat me, not him.' She didn't even care. She acted like he was Picasso. If it had been me, I would have been grounded for life. 'No dating till you're 50.' "

The first time Trey cursed, Grandpa wasn't mad--he was impressed. Damn right. "Only three years old and he used the word properly," said Senior.

"He reminds us so much of you," Birdie tells Junior.

"Me?" says Griffey. "The only swearword I got to say was when we went to Christopher Lee's Chinese Restaurant. I could order the poo-poo platter."

Actually, the three generations of Griffeys may end up looking like most close families. "I'm ornery," says Junior. "I have a determination that people don't often understand. It will never go away. I've always' had it. You're born with it. My kids act just like me, that's the scary part. They're competitive already. We'll race in the house and wrestle. Trey always wants to play--but rough. He won't back down. No matter, he's going to get the last lick in. That's from me."

And from his grandfather, too. Three years ago, when Junior smashed his wrist so badly that his career seemed threatened, he was showing his cast to his family, just as his father had shown him that scarred knee back in his Yankees days.

"Boo-boo. Ouch," said Trey, sympathetically. Then, when Dad wasn't watching, the infant picked up his favorite baseball bat and smashed Dad, as hard as he could, right on that wrist full of screws and plates.

"It hurt so bad I dropped to one knee," says Griffey.

And what did you say, Junior?

"I guess my father came out in me. I said, 'Good swing.'"

That'll work.

As a kid, he was exposed to two of the funniest, vainest locker rooms: those of the Reds and the Yankees.

"My dad told us that to be the best, you have to be four times better than anybody else," says Griffey.