Ken Griffey Jr. was talking before Sunday's game with Hall of Fame manager Tommy Lasorda in the Reds' clubhouse when Junior mentioned that his father, Ken Sr., had called Junior's family home the other morning at 2 a.m.

        “He's allowed to do that — he's your father,” Lasorda said.

        “No, no, you don't understand,” said Junior, smiling as he put his arm around the shoulders of the avuncular Lasorda. “We have a month-old baby. He stayed up until 6 a.m. because of that phone call.”

        It brought to mind one of Lasorda's many baseball theories.

        As with all of Lasorda's theories, it was postulated during his 53 years as a coach and manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers. And it's an interesting theory, because it deals with one of those great mysteries — why some teams are notoriously good road teams.

        Sunday was a good day to discuss it: Father's Day.

        Lasorda noticed that certain Dodgers teams tended to be good on the road but struggled at home. Others were extremely strong at home but didn't have a lot of zip on the road. He never could figure out why, until he began to study the rosters.

        Aha!

        Sure enough, Lasorda's slightly more veteran teams — those with a lot of fathers — did better on the road. His younger teams, those with more single guys, tended to be better home teams.

        Why? Because, Lasorda reasoned, the dads were able to get more sleep on the road and thus played better there, whereas at home they were being awakened by crying babies.

        Single guys, on the other hand, did their best sleeping at home. On the road, they were running around town and didn't play as well the next day.

        A reporter in the Reds' clubhouse Sunday said he had heard Lasorda extemporize on this before but had always struggled with how to best word it to get it into the paper.

        “Easy,” Griffey said. “Just say single guys have a little different agendas on the road than married guys.”

        One isn't quite sure what to make of the Reds in this regard. The team is a mix of old and young guys, dads and singles, families with and without infants. Some of their babies sleep through the night; some do not.

        The makeup of this year's team, which is a good home team (19-13), isn't all that different than last year's, an atrocious home team (27-54). But it's still early in the season; more evidence is needed.

        Besides, the fathers/single guy theory has competition from the feng shui theory, which is this: People at peace with their surroundings are more at peace with themselves, and thus more productive. The Reds are definitely more at peace with their surroundings at home this year.

        The exterior of Great American Ball Park — located in the once-open space between the left-field foul pole and right-center field — is pleasant to the eye. Last year, with all the cranes, dust and dirt, it was an eyesore.

        WHY HE WAS HERE: Lasorda was visiting Cincinnati with Mike Milken as part of the 2002 Home Run Challenge, a program designed to raise money to fund prostrate cancer research and better treatments. The Challenge has raised $20 million, and that has been matched by Milken's family.

        Overall, prostrate cancer has dropped more than 30 percent in Greater Cincinnati since the program was started six years ago. Milken said there was a 50 percent increase of prostrate tests and exams in the 30 days following last year's Father's Day program.

        “The baseball program is the No.1 reason for why awareness is up,” Milken said. “Ken Griffey Jr. is our national spokesperson, and he's been been with us every year.”

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