Sunday, February 18, 2001
Griffey can't please everyone
SARASOTA, Fla. — Ken Griffey Jr. steps up to the plate and Barry Larkin turns up the pressure.
“Can I see a double down the left-field line?” Larkin asks.
Griffey swings sweetly, connects solidly, but watches helplessly as the ball slices foul. He hits another shot that short-hops the fence in straightaway left field. He knocks one over the fence in left-center, and reckless fans race through the Tuttle Avenue traffic to retrieve it.
He swats line drives all over the lot at the Cincinnati Reds' training complex, but he hits nothing that passes for a double down the left-field line.
“You're paid too much not to have bat control,” Larkin tells his famous teammate.
Griffey says nothing. If Junior learned anything last season, it was that it is impossible to please everyone.
Pretty good "off' year
He hit 40 homers, and people bemoaned his batting average. He drove in 118 runs but failed to deliver the pennant. He left Seattle for the comforts of home to find home was not quite so comforting, while the Mariners flourished in his absence.
He faced death threats (Feb. 17 story) and fomented petty squabbles and consistently conveyed the impression of a man miserable in his work. He was about as much fun as a toothache during a tax audit.
Maybe now, there is normalcy.
This spring's Ken Griffey Jr. is more engaging and less suspicious, more a part of things and less apart from things. His season in the fishbowl is finished. He holds court on a trunk by his locker and the faces in front of him are fewer and more familiar. He takes his turn in the batting cage and only a couple of cameras click.
Griffey is last spring's sensation and this year's revisionist history. Alex Rodriguez has supplanted him as the most demonized man in Seattle, and A-Rod's quest for top dollar has cast Junior's homecoming in a more favorable light. Events have added perspective and subtracted scorn.
“Somebody explained it to me as a guy and a girlfriend breaking up,” Griffey said. “There are hard feelings between them, so you say anything to hurt their feelings. After a while, sometimes you realize that you really did the best thing for you.”
Return to Seattle inevitable
Griffey has not been back to Seattle since he was traded to the Reds last February, but his return there is virtually inevitable. Baseball's All-Star Game will be at Safeco Field this summer, and Junior is as probable a participant as any player on the planet.
He is too superstitious, he says, to contemplate that appearance before the votes are counted. The answer is an evasion, but it is nonetheless consistent with his character.
“If I drive a car and get no hits, I switch cars,” he said.
Fortune has favored Ken Griffey Jr. with seven cars, the result of his ability to hit a baseball like few men who have ever lived. Fate has cursed him with expectations that exceed reason and pressures the Average Joe can barely comprehend.
How many of us could easily ignore a threat to kidnap our children? How many of us could continue to function normally after the FBI had become involved in our affairs? How many of us could perform as well as did Ken Griffey Jr. under such duress?
If he can't always produce a double down the left-field line, perhaps he deserves a little slack.
E-mail tsullivan@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/sullivan.
Reds Stories
Xavier 79, Rhode Island 65
Frey ends scoring slump
Former Muskies see NBA action
Xavier women play last home game today
UC's Little finding his footing
TV movie dramatizes Bengal's tough childhood
New auto racing page and Kentucky Speedway preview
DAUGHERTY: 'Deadbeat dad, can I have your autograph?'
Best and worst of week in sports
Akron 58, Miami 55
Kentucky 79, Vanderbilt 74
NKU men 90, Bellarmine 74
NKU women upset by Bellarmine
Defiance sweeps Mount St. Joseph
Mighty Ducks 7, Portland 2
XFL is bad TV
Division I Sectional wrestling
Division II Sectional wrestling
Division III Sectional wrestling
Kentucky state wrestling
Division I girls district swimming
Division II girls district swimming
High School Insider
Boys basketball coverage
Girls basketball coverage
Cincinnati boys basketball games
Cincinnati girls basketball games
N.Ky. boys basketball games
N.Ky. girls basketball games
Boys basketball schedule
Girls basketball schedule
Indiana boys basketball scores
Indiana girls basketball scores
Kentucky boys basketball scores
Kentucky girls basketball scores
Ohio boys basketball scores
Ohio girls basketball scores
• Return to Reds front page...
SULLIVAN: Griffey can't please everyone
