Sunday, September 15, 2002
Frustrated Griffey: Reds fans
want to see me fail
In 14 years, has anybody ever said I came to spring training overweight and out of shape?” Junior Griffey asks. We are talking about one of Griffey's least favorite subjects: Griffey. The conversation isn't going well.
“Has anyone ever said I wasn't in shape?” he asks again.
Not that I can recall.
“If people think my offseason is a vacation ... they need to understand, this is my job.”
It's part-time work. Griffey wants a 40-hour week. His legs won't let him.
Griffey has 529 at-bats for the Reds in the last two years. Three years ago, he was the only active player on baseball's All-Century Team. Now at age 32, prime time for most players, he's a full-time pinch hitter.
“Will you ever be Junior again?” That is, will Griffey ever be the player who hit 209 home runs his last four years in Seattle, who won a Gold Glove every year for a decade, who was named the Player of the 1990s? Will he ever be the running, slugging, this-is-so-easy Kid of yore?
Because right now, we have Ken Griffey II. II plays when he's able and rehabs his lately disastrous legs when he's not. Injuries have taken him from arguably the best player in baseball to an afterthought. We wanted to ask him if he's concerned about that, and if there is anything he might do differently this offseason.
Will you ever be Junior again?
Junior rolls his eyes. He suggests we talk to his agent.
“He won't know,” we say.
“Enough has been written and said about me,” Griffey decides. “Enough shots have been taken.”
The Reds' medical people say Griffey has been diligent in his rehabilitation, starting with his comeback last spring from a torn left hamstring. We wanted to know if there is a way to prevent the leg problems. Griffey's manager in Seattle, Lou Piniella, has suggested Griffey didn't work out hard enough in the offseason when he was younger. Piniella suggested great shape shouldn't be taken for granted.
Griffey says the regimen for rehabbing is the same as for prevention.
“Don't you think after two years I know how to do this?” he asks.
We ask Rob Heidt Jr., a Bengals team physician, about chronic leg injuries. Dr.Heidt emphasizes he has never treated Griffey. “Generically, the big muscles in the leg - hamstring, groin - take very, very long to heal,” he says. When you compensate for the bad muscle, it can make something else hurt: back, feet, other parts of the leg. Dr.Heidt also says, “Prevention is a whole different animal” from rehab.
Hamstring tears are hardest on players like Griffey, who rely on quick bursts of speed. They can feel fine and still be prone to damage. “Healing,” says Dr.Heidt, “has a definition of its own.”
Griffey can define it: slow.
Will he train in the offseason like his peer Barry Bonds or his Orlando neighbor Bret Boone? Because there comes a time in your career when you can't simply roll out of bed and go deep - no matter who you are. “You can't cheat Mother Nature and time,” Dr.Heidt says. Steroid allegations aside, Bonds works out like a madman. It shows.
Bonds is 37. When he was 32, Griffey's age, he played in 159 games, hit 40 home runs and stole 37 bases. In the five years since, Bonds has hit 236 homers.
Griffey is asked about hiring a personal trainer, the way Boone did. He resents the question. He says his run of leg injuries is bad luck. He thinks we're out to get him. Not just the media. Everyone.
“They want me to fail,” he says of the fans.
No, they don't, you say. They want you to hit 50 home runs.
“You guys have never had in this town a guy who wanted to come home, who took less money to come home, who had lots of that money deferred to come home,” says Griffey. “If I was a quitter, I'd have gone home. I don't quit on anything, including rehab.”
He has lots of miles on him. Griffey was playing in the majors every day at 19. Even though he's more than four years older than Griffey, Barry Larkin had played in just 63 more games coming into this season. In his last three years with Seattle, Griffey missed eight games.
His track record suggests he plays hard and plays when he's able. But he has never faced the mental and physical challenges he faces now. Because he is so gifted, Ken Griffey II could be Junior Griffey again for bursts of time - a few weeks, a month. But recent history suggests his legs won't let him be more than that.
He could come back to hit 35 homers and drive in 90 runs. That's a nice year. That's not Junior.
Does he want more? Is he capable? Bonds hit 73 homers at age 36. Will Junior rally to be Junior again? Or is Ken Griffey II here for good?
Beats me. “This is another negative article,” Griffey asks me. “Right?”
E-mail Paul Daugherty at pdaugherty@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/daugherty
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Frustrated Griffey: Reds fans want to see me fail
