Monday, February 21, 2000

Griffey draws media circus

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BY JOE KAY
AP Sports Writer

Ken Griffey Jr. is surrounded by cameras as he walks to a news conference today. (AP photos) | ZOOM |

        SARASOTA, Fla. — The media rush caught up with Ken Griffey Jr., and his awestruck new teammates loved it.

        Dozens of reporters milled about the Cincinnati Reds clubhouse today as the low-key superstar arrived for his formal introduction. Two dozen cameras rolled as he rode a golf cart to the first-base dugout for a news conference.

        Baseball's oldest professional franchise hadn't seen anything like it since the days of the Big Red Machine in the mid-1970s.

        “This is the first time we've had a news conference like this,” shortstop Barry Larkin said. “It's going to be a circus, I'm sure, but we're all looking forward to it.”

Sitting on the dugout, Griffey answers questions with manager Jack McKeon and GM Jim Bowden. | ZOOM |

        No one is looking forward to it more than Griffey's new teammates, the ones whose names he has yet to learn.

        When he walked through an array of cameras and stepped into the clubhouse before the news conference, outfielder Dmitri Young stood nearby and took it all in with a pronounced smile.

        “Wow,” said Young, who spent some time with Mark McGwire in St. Louis. “He's in our locker room. He's our teammate. It's great. It reminds me of St. Louis when we got McGwire. That was a media circus. This is even greater because he's here from the beginning. This is a great day.”

Griffey said he wasn't nervous, but his bouncing heel suggested otherwise. | ZOOM |

        Griffey came to his hometown team in a 4-for-1 trade with Seattle on Feb. 10. He quietly reported to camp Sunday, unpacking his equipment with only a couple of teammates and a handful of reporters and photographers around.

        He was front-and-center today. The Reds held a news conference atop the first-base dugout — the same stage for Michael Jordan's chat with the reporters six years ago when he was about to try his hand at baseball.

        Everywhere he went, Griffey was followed.

        “I just figured I'd sneak into the locker room without being noticed and go onto the field and that's it,” Griffey said wistfully. “I didn't have any idea there would be this many people and cameras here.”

        About 100 reporters and photographers were on hand, roughly half the number for Jordan's news conference in 1994.

Afterward, Griffey wrestles with Barry Larkin's son, Shane, 7. | ZOOM |

        Griffey wore blue jeans, a blue T-shirt and an ear ring in his left lobe — something former Reds owner Marge Schott would have groused about. He rested the microphone on the nub of a black bat between his legs as he sat in a folding chair, positioned atop the first “I” in Cincinnati painted on the dugout roof.

        All the attention made him uncomfortable.

        “Nervous? Not at all. My legs aren't shaking,” he said tongue-in-cheek, prompting everyone to look at his jumping right heel.

        Once again, he talked about his desire to play in his hometown, the only team to which he would approve a trade. He told stories about growing up with his father, Ken Sr., who was a star on the Reds of the '70s.

        And he talked about having to change Mariners blue for Cincinnati red and the unsettling feeling he got when he walked into the clubhouse and saw names like Cromer, Stafanski, Shelby, Weber and Toth above the dressing cubicles.

        “I'm looking at people and going, 'I don't know him,' ” Griffey said. “I've got to remember all the names. I'm just glad they've got the names and numbers on the backs of the uniforms so I know what to call them.”

        He won't have his first workout until Wednesday, when position players join the pitchers and catchers.

        Even though his bouncing heel betrayed his nervousness, Griffey answered questions in a tone that gave little hint of what he felt inside.

        “This is about as excited as I get, other than sliding into home against the Yankees,” said Griffey, who scored the winning run against New York in the 1995 playoffs.

        Larkin, who went to the same high school as Griffey in Cincinnati and lives in the same area of Orlando, could tell that he was excited in the days leading up to the trade.

        “Junior is very cavalier about everything,” Larkin said. “He's like: 'Whatever.' I knew he was getting excited because he started calling me like every day.”

        The news conference was the biggest thing to hit these parts since Jordan showed up at the Chicago White Sox camp with a bat instead of a basketball in February 1994.

        “The excitement around town has been nonstop,” said Pat Calhoon, who manages the complex. “I don't think there's been any time when the box office was open in the last eight days that there hasn't been a line.”

        Griffey agreed to a $116.5 million, nine-year contract that was about half his market value so he could finish his career with the Reds. When the trade was announced, Cincinnati got swept up in a Griffey mania that the outfielder has only heard about.

        “I've got some cousins who flew in this past weekend (from Cincinnati). They were yelling at me: "It used to be a peaceful neighborhood until you moved in,' ” he said.

       

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