The Griffeys. (Michael E. Keating photo) | ZOOM |

        SAN DIEGO — For most people, today means Father's Day. For ballplayers, today means another game.

        That doesn't mean that baseball players, by and large, have less regard for their fathers than average folks. If anything, baseball is the quintessential father-son sport. The notion of fathers playing catch with sons is so ingrained in America's consciousness that it has served as a book title and the concluding scene in two movies, The Natural and Field of Dreams.

        Along with various Bells, Boones, Berras, Bondses, Alous and Ripkens, the Griffeys have established themselves among baseball's leading families. Ken Griffey Sr., the Reds' bench coach, is among the game's proudest and luckiest papas, now that he gets to watch his son, an All-Century Team center fielder, play every day.

        But the Griffeys aren't just related to each other. They're dedicated to the diamond. So today's focus, to repeat, is Cincinnati's series finale against the San Diego Padres.

        “We have to work,” Griffey Sr. said. “That's the way it is. Our days are pretty much taken. You have to look at it as the same old day, day-to-day. Everyone else may be off, but we're working. That's the way it is for anybody in this game.”

        Said Griffey Jr., “Father's Day, Mother's Day, Easter — anything that happens during the season is tough, because you're gone.”

        These flinty professionals weren't completely stoic about each other, though.

        “It'll be special being around him on Father's Day,” Griffey Sr. said of his famous son.

        Griffey Jr. joked about the obligation many sons feel toward their fathers: “I give him the same stuff every year. Some Old Spice and underwear. I won't change because I'm with him now.”

        Ideally, a father's relationship with his children doesn't change. It only deepens.

A youthful Ken Jr., right, and brother Craig with dad in the Reds dugout. (Enquirer file photo) | ZOOM |

        By now, nearly every Cincinnati fan has seen the Big Red Machine-era photographs of Ken Sr., the team's right fielder, playing in uniform with his sons, Ken Jr. and Craig. The pictures might be in black and white, but they color Griffey Sr.'s memory.

        “In Cincinnati, I was there all the time,” Griffey Sr. said. “It wasn't really until I got traded from the Reds (before the 1982 season) that it meant a lot to me, more and more, because I wasn't able to get back to them at certain times ... When I was in New York ... that was about the toughest time.”

        The Griffeys haven't been together on Father's Day since 1993, when Senior was hitting coach for the Seattle Mariners, Junior's former team. Today could have been a three-generation celebration, but Griffey Jr. said that plans to bring his children, 6-year- old son Trey and 4-year-old daughter Taryn, unraveled at the last minute.

        Such reunions have been more frequent this year. The celebrated February trade that brought Griffey Jr. to the Reds obviously gave him daily access to his father. It also has afforded Grandpa Griffey more opportunities to see Trey and Taryn. “I have a lot of fun,” Griffey Sr. said. “I get to see them often.”

        Before this season, with Griffey Jr. playing in Seattle, his children often staying at the family home near Orlando and Griffey Sr. based in Cincinnati, seeing each other between spring training and the end of the regular season was next to impossible. “It was kind of tough for all of us to kind of get together,” Griffey Sr. said.

        The offseason is more kind to baseball people. Like their brethren throughout organized baseball, the Griffeys especially cherish Christmas and Thanksgiving, which are unencumbered by on-field obligations.

        “On Christmas, he comes over and he and Trey put together racing tracks and stuff like that,” Griffey Jr. said of his dad. “On Thanksgiving, we'll get up and play golf. We'll have maybe two or three foursomes go out. Then we'll come back in, eat and watch the football game.

        “It's all family.”

        Today is, too, at least a little bit.

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