Saturday, February 12, 2000
The makings of a grand-slam deal
Bringing Ken Griffey Jr. to Cincinnati was never a sure thing. Even those behind the scenes had their doubts
BY TIM SULLIVAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
![[griffey]](http://reds.enquirer.com/img/photos/2000/02/021000bowden180.jpg)
GM Jim Bowden worked long and hard to bring father and son together Thursday.
(AP photo)
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Jim Bowden boarded the plane with a single purpose and a bold promise. The Reds general manager left for the winter meetings last December intent of returning from California with Ken Griffey Jr.
“I'm not coming to Anaheim to go to Disneyland,” Bowden told reporters. “It's no disrespect to Disney, but I'm not interested in Goofy. I'm coming to get Griffey.”
The words were barely blurted before Bowden wanted them back. For as soon as he landed, and checked the messages he had missed in mid-air, the brash baseball executive learned that he lacked the authority to pursue Seattle's All-Star center fielder.
He heard the voice of Reds Chief Operating Officer John Allen, ordering Bowden to pull out of the Griffey talks because of budgetary concerns. Bowden would go through the motions of meeting with the Mariners on Dec. 11, but he knew it was all a sham.
When Mariners General Manager Pat Gillick renewed his insistence on second baseman Pokey Reese — a continued sticking point in the preliminary discussions — Bowden took it as his cue to declare an impasse.
He told Gillick there was no point in proceeding, took his leave and promptly reported to the press room. There, Bowden explained that the Reds were pulling out of the Griffey trade talks and would not pursue him again until he attained free agency following the 2000 season.
![[griffey]](http://reds.enquirer.com/img/photos/2000/02/021000lindner180.jpg)
Carl Lindner needed to be convinced that the deal made economic sense.
(AP photo)
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Pokey Reese was the excuse. Cost was the real reason.
Precisely 100 days passed between Griffey's trade request on Nov. 2 and his press conference Thursday night at Cinergy Field. During that span, the Reds made dozens of proposals, fielded dozens of counter-proposals and worried constantly about cash.
Bowden always believed Griffey would pay for himself through additional attendance, concessions, advertising and heightened rights fees. But not until Tuesday did he gain final clearance to get the baseball part of the deal done.
For more than three months, Bowden fought a two-front battle: pressuring Seattle General Manager Pat Gillick to lower his price while pleading with Allen to loosen his purse.
“This is when you read Job and you read Job every night,” Bowden said Friday, referring to the Bible's long-suffering believer. “You have to have patience. And you have to remember who has the cards.”
Position of strength
From the outset of trade talks, Bowden knew the deck was stacked in his favor. Cincinnati is Griffey's hometown, and his father, Ken Sr., is a Reds coach. Because Griffey had only one year remaining on his Seattle contract, and the right to veto any trade, he was able to pick his employer — provided that team could cover his cost.
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GLORY DAYS
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Reds GM Jim Bowden said he received “hundreds and hundreds of phone calls from people all over the world” congratulating him Friday on the Ken Griffey Jr. deal.
“That doesn't include e-mails from fans, which have been astronomical,” Bowden said. “It's been incredible.”
Bowden declined to name any of his well-wishers for fear of leaving out anyone, but said his calls came from fellow general managers, scouts, agents and club owners.
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The Reds began the Griffey trade talks as the most serious and least-secretive bidder, and they were subsequently identified as the only team he would agree to join. This made both of Bowden's battles more manageable. He knew the Mariners could not seriously entertain competitive bids and that Griffey was more concerned with his destination than his dollars.
“He didn't hold all the cards,” Gillick insisted. “We didn't have to trade him. And we wouldn't have if the deal wasn't good for the organization. But we definitely could have come up with a stronger package if we'd had more than one team bidding.”
Those players the Reds ultimately sent to Seattle — pitcher Brett Tomko, outfielder Mike Cameron and minor-league prospects Antonio Perez and Jake Meyer — were a drastic reduction from Gillick's original demands. They represented the realities of a narrow marketplace versus Griffey's presumed value in a wide-open auction.
Of the four teams on Griffey's original trade list — Atlanta, Houston, the New York Mets and the Reds — only the Mets and Reds evinced any serious interest.
Gillick's opening price consisted of Bowden's core holdings: Reese, first baseman Sean Casey, starting pitcher Denny Neagle, reliever Scott Williamson and a top prospect — either Travis Dawkins or Adam Dunn.
Given Bowden's intense infatuation with Griffey — reflected in his public comments and the short right field fence planned for Cincinnati's next ballpark — Gillick may have suspected the Reds were eager enough to overpay.
Yet much as Bowden fantasized about having Griffey in center field, he figured Gillick's price as inflated and his alternatives as limited. He figured time for an ally, and Gillick for a man who would know when to cut his losses.
Executives from the two teams discussed virtually every player in the Cincinnati organization during the November general managers' meetings in Dana Point, Calif. Cameron, curiously, was one player the Mariners initially resisted, though he plays Griffey's position and hit 21 homers in 1999.
“I thought Mike Cameron would have to be a big component for them,” Bowden said. “Common sense said it would.”
Instead, Gillick concen trated on the right side of the Reds infield — Reese and his Gold Glove, Casey and his big bat. The Mariners would not budge from these two “untouchables,” until they signed free agent first baseman John Olerud on Dec. 7 — the day before Bowden's boast about going to Disneyland to get Griffey.
Outside observers assumed Olerud's signing would facilitate a Griffey deal, for it would leave the Reds with the popular and potent Casey. But Allen was adamant that no deal be done. The day before Bowden met with Gillick, Allen expressed his reservations to The Cincinnati Enquirer. The story was played atop the front page.
“To go out and give up the people they have been asking for makes no sense,” Allen said. “And the money's just prohibitive. The Reds certainly in the near future are not going to be major players in the high-priced free agent market. We can't. I just don't see it happening.”
For weeks afterward, Bowden's public posture was that there was nothing new. Yet while he and Gillick kept their distance, lower-level officials from the Reds and Mariners continued to explore possibilities.
“The one thing we didn't want to do was give up a lot of pitching,” said Brad Kullman, the Reds director of baseball administration. “We talked about Tomko. We talked about Williamson. We talked about (Dennys) Reyes. We knew we couldn't give them all of them.”
Convincing the boss
Bowden concentrated his energies on Allen, preparing a report that ran between 30 and 40 pages outlining the financial case for getting Griffey. Two copies were sent to Allen, one of them intended for Reds principal owner Carl Lindner.
Finally, eager to resume the trade talks, Bowden asked if he could make a deal with the Mariners if he could convince Gillick to assume all the cost of Griffey's 2000 salary. Allen told him to proceed, but quietly.
On the evening of Jan. 25, the quiet was disturbed by an Internet report of an imminent three-way trade involving the Reds, Mariners and Kansas City Royals. Denials were quick and firm, but this only gave rise to more rumors. Under instructions to pursue a deal “quietly,” Bowden appeared on a Redsfest panel on Jan. 28 and solicited Griffey trade suggestions from the audience.
The following Friday, Feb. 4, Bowden sensed a shift in Seattle. During an appearance at a golf tournament in California, Griffey had complained of a death threat and called it “pretty much the last straw with me staying in Seattle.” The Mariners were ready to move.
“Finally, at about 3 o'clock, Doc (Rodgers) got a message — not from their GM but one of their assistants. Doc returned the message and it was kind of an offer we had talked about before. It was just depressing. I said, "I'm out of here,'” Kullman said.
Kullman left for Seven Springs, Pa., checking his messages periodically with a cellular phone. He came off the slopes Saturday to find a promising message from Bowden.
“Jim said, "I'll see you on TV when we have the press conference,” Kullman recalled.
Bowden thought he was close enough to a deal to seek approval through channels. The Reds had agreed to send Seattle Tomko, Perez and Reyes, and were quibbling over catcher Jason LaRue. Bowden worried that he didn't have enough catching to let LaRue go, but he didn't think this was an obstacle he couldn't overcome.
He called Allen on Saturday. “I've agreed on three players,” he said. “I can get this deal done.”
Sunday night, while he was sitting down to dinner, Bowden's phone rang. It was Allen.
“You've got to pull out,” Allen said. “The numbers aren't going to work.”
“I didn't know what to say,” Bowden said. “I was this close to trading for the best player ever and this happened.”
Reluctant to set a new standard for baseball salaries, Lindner instinctively opposed the Griffey trade. Yet he was also sensitive to the fervor of the fans. WLW executive Dave Martin sent Lindner a letter lobbying for the trade, knowing that the Reds getting Griffey would surely raise the radio station's rights fees when its contract expired after the 2000 season.
“Whether he ever read the letter, I don't know,” Martin said Friday. “It's easy for me to spend Carl Lindner's money. What I told him was that I just thought it was the right thing to do.”
Brian Goldberg, Griffey's agent, pushed the deal over the hump.
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By Monday afternoon, Lindner was wavering. Tuesday, agent Brian Goldberg announced Griffey was willing to sign a long-term contract at a below-market price. Goldberg called Jim Evans, general counsel at Lindner's American Financial Group and said he had received permission from the Mariners to talk directly to Reds officials.
“Brian felt he had a breakthrough,” one source involved in the talks said. “He basically said, "I'm going to make a deal work for you guys.'”
At that point, Evans set out to “re-engage Carl” in the deal. Tuesday night, Allen called Bowden at the Reds spring training complex in Sarasota and told him he had clearance to make a trade.
Bowden asked whether the Mariners would have to absorb some of Griffey's cost. Allen told him that would be helpful, but it was no longer necessary.
“I knew at that point,” Bowden said, “that I was going to bring him home.”
The two teams went back and forth Wednesday afternoon. The Mariners had hoped to trade Tomko for Anaheim center fielder Jim Edmonds, but Edmonds was not interested in signing a long-term deal with Seattle. Thus Cameron's name returned to the mix and Reyes' was removed.
Bowden closed the deal Wednesday night in his Sarasota office, with his assistant, Doc Rodgers; instructor Jim Thrift; and clubhouse manager Rick Stowe.
“You've got the most unbelievable poker face I've ever seen,” Stowe told him.
“When you score a touchdown like this,” Bowden said, “you want to look like Walter Payton, not Elmo Wright.”
Cliff Peale and Chris Haft contributed to this report.
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