SARASOTA, Fla. - He has a very big boat he named Chosen One, and before you draw the obvious conclusion about that, know this: Junior Griffey named it for his 10-month-old adopted son, Tevin, not for himself.

Griffey thought about naming the boat Swingman, for the logo his shoe company has given his clothing line. But he thought it too presumptuous and self-promoting. This says two things about Griffey: 1.) He loves his kids. (His last boat was named Taryn-It-Up, for his daughter) and 2.) he is sensitive about the publicity he gets.

Yes, we've been through this before and, no, it's not going to change. Griffey's not changing nor, probably, are the opinions of those who follow his career. You could call him whiny, moody, petulant, arrogant, angry, selfish or spoiled. He has heard it all. Having watched him for three years and talked to him at length, I'm not sure what to call him.

Ken Griffey Jr. (Jeff Swinger photo) | ZOOM |

Reluctant, maybe. At 33, no more comfortable in the fame suit than he was at 19, when all this started. Willing to accept the gifts of fame but unsure how to deal with its messy demands. Junior Griffey wants to be average sometimes. "Let me have some sense of being normal," he said Wednesday. That won't happen. Not now.

He called his neighbor, Tiger Woods, after Woods won the Buick Open last month. (Griffey says Woods really does drive a Buick. "At least he has one," Griffey says.) He takes his kids to Dads Doughnut Day at school. He gets up in the middle of the night when one of them is sick.

One of the reasons Griffey is a good family man is his family doesn't care he's a big shot. He likes to tell the story of his 9-year-old son, Trey, being in awe in the presence of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. "To him, I'm just Dad."

Why does Griffey, according to fans here, go out of his way not to sign autographs? Not because he's rude or arrogant. He's uncomfortable in the public eye. The guy still squirms in interviews.

But he did call Hal McCoy of the Dayton Daily News, after McCoy was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. And he did pay an unsolicited visit to Casey McAlister, son of radio host Lance McAlister, when Casey was in the hospital taking leukemia treatments. Lance and Griffey talked not about baseball, but about fatherhood.

Because Griffey is prone to defending himself by claiming he has been misunderstood by the writers or mistreated by the fans - "they want me to fail," he told me last year - his image has taken a hit. The problem isn't Griffey's attitude. Given the injuries he has had the last two years, his attitude has been good. He just doesn't come off well in public, especially in large groups, be they media or fans.

He's pretty much the Mario Mendoza of public relations. Is that his problem, or ours?

"The one thing that keeps me from going crazy is playing," he says.

He has come in from a workout to the media room at Ed Smith Stadium, to seek me out. Probably, Barry Bonds wouldn't do that. Griffey claims not to care what people think about him. Truth is, he cares too much.

"Eighty-five percent of it is nitpicking," he says of the public's reaction to him. " `He's not happy. He's whining.' I went from the poster boy of baseball to the bad boy of baseball in one six-hour flight" from Seattle to Cincinnati.

"You're exaggerating," I say.

"To me, that's how it seems," Griffey says.

Told the best way to quiet that notion is to hit 40 homers, Griffey says: "They'll find something else. They always do." Asked about his relationship with Reds manager Bob Boone, since Boone tried to facilitate Griffey's trade to San Diego, Griffey shrugs.

"I don't think it matters," he says.

"You're not mad?"

"You get used to it," he says.

"Have you talked to Boone about it?"

No, Griffey shrugs. "There's nothing to say."

He offers the same reaction when asked about general manager Jim Bowden's comments. Bowden called the trade for Griffey "a flop."

"If I defend myself, I'm whining. If I don't talk about it, I'm mad," says Griffey.

And so on. You want Griffey to hit those 40 homers this year, drive in 130 and bat .290. You want it for him, because he's too young to have his career crash the way it has. You want it for the fans. Who, contrary to what Junior might think, want very much for him to do well and care very little about how many autographs he signs. You want it for the city, which could use some good news.

He doesn't sleep well, he says, never has, so he sometimes works out in the middle of the night. During his rehab last summer, he came to Cinergy Field before anyone, usually about 1:30. "I've had to wait on equipment managers to open my trunk, so I can get dressed," he says. "If I'm an hour and a half early, I feel late."

He doesn't take supplements because he's afraid of what they'd do to him. Twenty years down the road, he wants to be playing with his grandchildren, not worrying about his liver function. Griffey says he isn't swayed by the overnight jumps in the longball prowess of some of his well-known peers. What they do is up to them, he says.

"I don't want to rehab. I don't want to sit on the bench. I don't want to talk to the doctor. I don't want to see the doctor. I want to be in center field or at the plate. Whatever I have to do to do that, I will."

Whatever else this season will be for the Reds, it won't be short on subplots. The biggest revolves around Griffey. It usually does, like it or not. The world's most reluctant superstar has done almost everything in baseball except make peace with his fame. If he comes back to play the way he can, fame will be a pleasant problem again.

E-mail pdaugherty@enquirer.com