Tuesday, February 22, 2000
Griffey's 1st day lasts for 3 hours
BY JOHN FAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
![[griffey]](http://reds.enquirer.com/img/photos/2000/02/022200dugout_180x136.jpg)
Ken Griffey Jr. is escorted atop the Reds' dugout Monday in front of a sea of cameras.
| ZOOM | |
SARASOTA, Fla. — Ken Griffey Jr. showed up Monday. He put on a uniform. He answered some questions. That's all he really did, but 150 members of the media watched him every minute of three hours of it. The first day in the life of Junior as a Red:
9:02 a.m.: Griffey pulls in the parking lot at the Reds spring training facility in his black Mercedes CLK 60. The Florida license plates read: WICKID I.
9:03: Griffey walks the 40 steps from the parking lot to the Reds clubhouse. He parts a sea of camera people as he does.
9:04: Griffey heads immediately to the training room — away from the media.
9:08: Griffey emerges. The first person to greet him is Bernie Stowe, the Reds' long-time equipment man. Players seem a little reluctant to approach their new teammate. Finally, Sean Casey greets him. Aaron Boone and Denny Neagle follow.
9:10: Griffey sits in his locker and swings a bat. “I'm waiting for Barry (Larkin),” he says. ESPN commentator Harold Reynolds comes over to chat. They talk cars, spe cifically Griffey's car and its stereo.
9:12: Reds General Manager Jim Bowden approaches. “What's all the attention? Is it for you?” he says. Griffey: “No, they're waiting for my dad to come in. He'll be here Wednesday?”
9:15: Peter Gammons from ESPN comes over to chat. The conversation turns to Junior's amateur days, after Griffey tells Gammons he knows teammate Mark Lewis.
“I used to play with him and (former big-leaguer) Jayhawk Owens,” Griffey says. “Mark would bat second. I'd bat third. And Jayhawk would bat fourth. Jayhawk used to pick me up. He was 16, and I was 15.”
9:40: ESPN teases to a story about Griffey by mentioning the situation with his father, Ken Sr., and Reds manager Jack McKeon. The jist of the opening is: Does Junior's trade to Cincinnati mean Senior will be taking over for McKeon as manager?
Griffey perks up when he hears Dan Patrick mention it. He shakes his head at the story.
9:44: Griffey starts out of the clubhouse to go to the first-base dugout for his news conference. He plans on walking.
But Mark Stowe, another Reds equipment man and Bernie's son, is waiting with a golf cart. “I don't know why they're doing this,” Griffey says as he hops in the cart.
9:46: Griffey takes a seat atop the dugout between Bowden and McKeon. The news conference lasts 18 minutes.
On being in a new clubhouse: “It's different. I'm looking at people in the clubhouse, saying "I don't know him. I don't know him.' I've got all these new names to remember.”
On pressure: “There's no extra pressure. I just have to do what I do and play hard.”
On the reception from the media: “I thought I'd sneak in the locker room, and that'd be it.”
On possibly breaking Henry Aaron's all-time home record: “I'm 357 away. That's a lot of home runs. I don't even want to think about that.”
Is he excited? “This is about as excited as I get. (When Griffey said this, he was as calm as still water). Other than sliding into home against the Yankees (to win the Division Series in 1995), I don't get too excited.”
10:06: Griffey's back in the clubhouse after another golf cart ride. He sits at his locker taping the handles of new bats.
10:10: Dick Vitale, ESPN basketball talker and Sarasota resident, walks up. “Don't take over my town,” he tells Junior.
But Griffey wants to talk basketball.
“What happened to UC?” Griffey asks Vitale, who was ABC's analyst for the UC-Temple game. They spend a few minutes talking about UC's loss to Temple.
10:20: Reynolds, a former teammate, is working on Griffey about getting a “sit-down, one-on-one” interview. “I've been on every station in the country,” Griffey protests. “I don't need to be on anymore.”
10:25: Pokey Reese starts getting dressed to work out.
“What are you doin', Pokey?” Griffey asks.
“Getting ready to take some hacks,” Reese says.
“Take some for me,” Griffey says.
10:40: Rick Stowe, third Stowe family member of the equipment staff, wheels in Griffey's huge equipment trunk. It's full of gloves, shirts, wrist bands, etc.
10:45: Griffey begins putting on a Reds uniform for the first time since he was 13. Griffey has agreed to a photo shoot with trading-card company Upper Deck, which will sell copies of photos to various advertisers that need shots of him in a Reds uniform.
“That way he doesn't have to sit through five photo shoots,” says Griffey's agent, Brian Goldberg.
10:50: Griffey is ready to go. But he's wearing a red long sleeve T-shirt under his jersey. The Reds wear black. He switches, mumbling, “You all have too many colors of shirts.
11:01: Griffey heads upstairs to the Reds offices for the five-minute photo shoot.
11:31: The five-minute shoot is over.
11:32: Griffey gives a one-on-one interview to Larry Stone of the Seattle Times.
11:53: Griffey is still talking. Reynolds comes and says, “Melissa (Griffey's wife) wants to know how long?'”
“Five minutes.”
12:03: Griffey wraps it up with Stone. “He was good,” Stone says. “No headline stuff, but he explained the whole thing.”
12:04: Griffey gets in his car with Reynolds. They're heading to lunch with Goldberg, Melissa and Griffey's children, Trey and Taryn.
Reynolds will work on getting the interview. “I've got to buy (lunch),” Reynolds says.
He is not optimistic.
“I've been trying all winter,” Reynolds says.
There's always Wednesday. That's when Griffey's Reds career really begins, with a workout.
The media will be there.
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