One home run doesn't change who you are, any more than 500 home runs do. What the 500 Watch has done is put the human face back on Ken Griffey Jr. It was good to see, even if Griffey maintains it was there all along.

BY THE NUMBERS

Ken Griffey Jr.'s Home Run Breakdown (500 HR) By Team Anaheim ... 27 Arizona ... 3 Atlanta ... 2 Baltimore ... 28 Boston ... 28 Colorado ... 13 White Sox ... 28 Cubs ... 6 Cincinnati ... 0 Cleveland ... 31 Detroit ... 32 Florida ... 8 Houston ... 12 Kansas City ... 29 Los Angeles ... 10 Milwaukee ... 23 Minnesota ... 38 Montreal ... 8 Mets ... 4 Yankees ... 33 Oakland ... 28 Philadelphia ... 1 Pittsburgh ... 6 St. Louis ... 15 San Diego ... 10 Seattle ... 0 San Francisco ... 7 Tampa Bay ... 7 Texas ... 30 Toronto ... 34 Division Series: ... 5 League Championship Series: ... 1 All-Star Game Homers: ... 1 All-Star Home Run Contest Wins: ... 1994, 1998, 1999 Breakdown Solo ... 268 2-run ... 163 3-run ... 56 Slam ... 14 ... vs RHP ... 354 vs LHP ... 147 Home ... 266 Road ... 235 Record By... 1 home run ... 240-159 2 home runs ... 36-12 3 home runs ... 2-0 Overall ... 278-171 By Month March ... 1 April ... 80 May ... 107 June ... 87 July ... 73 August ... 83 September ... 68 October ... 2 By Inning 1st ... 84 2nd ... 28 3rd ... 61 4th ... 57 5th ... 67 6th ... 63 7th ... 46 8th ... 50 9th ... 38 10th ... 1 11th ... 4 12th ... 0 13th ... 2 Position CF ... 480 LF ... 1 RF ... 1 DH ... 15 PH ... 4 By Day of Week Sunday ... ... 83 Monday ... ... 58 Tuesday ... ... 85 Wednesday ... ... 64 Thursday ... ... 57 Friday ... ... 80 Saturday ... ... 74 BY SCORE GA ... 139 GT ... 52 GE ... 3 ... +1 ... 48 -1 ... 33 Home Runs by Inning & Men On Base Inn 0 1 2 3 Total 1 34 41 9 0 84 2 16 7 2 3 28 3 28 24 8 1 61 4 32 16 8 1 57 5 38 21 6 2 67 6 39 15 5 4 63 7 24 13 9 0 46 8 28 14 6 2 50 9 24 10 3 1 38 10 1 0 0 0 1 11 3 1 0 0 4 12 1 1 0 0 2 Total 267 163 56 14 500 By Field Edison Field ... 18 Bank One Ballpark ... 2 Turner Field ... 0 Camden Yards/Memorial Stadium ... 9/3 Fenway Park ... 8 Coors Field ... 8 Comiskey Park/Old Comiskey Park ... 9/0 Wrigley Field ... 3 Great American Ball Park/Cinergy ... 16/38 Jacobs Field/Cleveland Stadium ... 9/11 Tiger Stadium/Comerica Park ... 11/0 Pro Player Stadium ... 4 Enron Field/Astrodome ... 8/0 Kauffman Stadium ... 10 Dodger Stadium ... 6 Miller Park/County Stadium ... 3/9 Metrodome ... 22 Olympic Stadium ... 3 Shea Stadium ... 2 Yankee Stadium ... 18 Oakland Coliseum ... 11 Veterans Stadium ... 1 PNC Park/Three Rivers Stadium ... 1/2 Busch Stadium ... 5 PETCO Park/Qualcomm Stadium ... 1/4 SAFECO Field/Kingdome ... 14/198 3Com Park/Pac Bell Park ... 1/1 Tropicana Field ... 5 Ballpark In Arlington/Arlington Stadium ... 9/4 Skydome/ Exhibition Stadium ... 14/0

"I never changed," Griffey said in Cleveland, "your perceptions of me did."

Probably. These last few weeks of scrutiny have shown Griffey to be everything he and others close to him have said he was: A good teammate - "one amongst us" was how Sean Casey put it - a glad clubhouse presence (and perpetual card player), an appealing personality and dominant player when he is healthy and in the lineup every day.

If fate stole your livelihood for two-plus years, how happy might you be? Break a concert pianist's fingers, see how much he smiles. It's harder for jocks who, more than most, define who they are by what they do for a living. Griffey isn't quite that self-possessed. He counts his family higher than his batting average in his personal blessings statistics.

But when you have been Junior Griffey for a decade - All-Century Team member, a front-runner to challenge Hank Aaron's home run record, the wall-climbing, line-driving, glad-handing Kid of baseball - it's disorienting and disillusioning to be just Ken Griffey.

It's hard to be a passenger when all you've ever done is drive the bus.

We've seen the family man, and the loyalty his passion for family has inspired. On a recent road trip, Reds traveling secretary Gary Wahoff was almost as valuable to Griffey as his bats. Wahoff had the daily duty of sorting through Junior's ticket requests. There were never fewer than 20.

Griffey needed two weeks to collect Nos. 499 and 500. His family followed him from Oakland to Cleveland to Philadelphia to Cincinnati to St. Louis. His father has enough frequent flyer miles to start his own airline.

"It was planes, trains and automobiles," Griffey said.

"It'll mean a lot for them to be here," Griffey had said in Oakland. "I get more joy out of the things they do than I ever do out of the things I do." Griffey's oldest son, 10-year-old Trey, who "doesn't like baseball," his father said, was at the games every night. During the day, Trey amused himself by playing Xbox and sending room service lunch to an unaware Barry Larkin's hotel room.

It was Junior's closeness to his father that spurred the nine-homers-in-14-games tear that put 500 within reach. A little more than a month ago, Senior was watching the Reds on TV from his Florida home when he noticed Junior's hands were slow through the hitting zone. Senior called his brother Louis, who happened to be at Great American Ball Park, and told him to relay the information to Junior. Louis did, and Junior responded with a double and a home run, igniting the run that put Junior back in the public eye.

"It's really not tinkering," Griffey said of his father's occasional advice. "It's just him saying, 'You're doing this wrong.' Sometimes, it's just alignment. I'm too closed. Instead of striding toward the pitcher, I'm striding toward the shortstop."

What's next? Will the Junior Comes Home fairy tale have the happy ending we all predicted when he signed with the Reds? Five hundred is a nice milestone. Griffey handled with grace the scrutiny of the chase. But now what?

Only his body knows. Before spending three years as an outpatient, he was on course to hit more home runs than anyone ever has. Griffey was the youngest to 350, 400 and 450. He hit No. 450 when he was just 32. If you assumed back then he'd play another decade, he'd have needed to average just 31 homers a year to pass Aaron.

Now, 600 seems a worthy milestone. Historians likely will look back at Junior Griffey's career with a What If? glance. Historians will. Griffey won't.

(Did we mention that, in these cynical days of Barry, BALCO and wondering, nobody has ever questioned Griffey's commitment to cleanliness? The man wears long sleeves on even the hottest days, preferring not to bare what he calls the "mini-muscles" of his arms.)

"We don't talk about accomplishments," Griffey said. The question had been if he and his father had discussed No. 500. "Even when I was playing basketball, it was, 'How did the team do?' If you lived in my house, you'd never know if my dad went 4-for-4 or 0-for-4. If it was a day game, he'd come home and shoot baskets with us.

"I try to take everything in stride. From Day 1, I never get too high or too low. That's the way my dad was. It was the one thing he kept telling me. Don't believe how good people say you are or how bad you think you are. You come back tomorrow and try to build on the day before."

Now that Griffey isn't wandering the desert of rehabilitation, the building has resumed. It's an impressive house, professionally and personally. The 500 Watch let us see inside. The view was worth the wait.

For fans of Junior Griffey and human nature, it has been an interesting couple of weeks. All he ever wanted, Griffey has always said, was to be healthy enough to play baseball. We didn't believe him. We figured it had to be something more than that. It wasn't.

Junior Griffey went deep for the 500th time Sunday afternoon. He took all of us along for the ride. Good for him. Good for us. Good for the game.

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E-mail pdaugherty@enquirer.com

500TH HOME RUNS

Player	Team	League	Date	Pitcher	Team	Site	Age	On	AB	AB/HR
Babe Ruth	NYY	AL	8/11/1929	Willis Hudlin	CLE	CLE	34.186	0	5801	11.60
Jimmie Foxx	BOS	AL	9/24/1940	George Caster	PHA	PHA	32.338	0	7074	14.15
Mel Ott	NYG	NL	8/1/1945	Johnny Hutchings	BSN	NYG	36.152	0	9249	18.50
Ted Williams	BOS	AL	6/17/1960	Wynn Hawkins	CLE	CLE	41.292	1	7451	14.90
Willie Mays	SF	NL	9/13/1965	Don Nottebart	HOU	HOU	34.130	0	7533	15.07
Mickey Mantle	NYY	AL	5/14/1967	Stu Miller	BAL	NYY	35.206	0	7300	14.60
Eddie Mathews	HOU	NL	7/14/1967	Juan Marichal	SF	SF	35.274	2	8279	16.56
Hank Aaron	ATL	NL	7/14/1968	Mike McCormick	SF	ATL	34.160	2	8612	17.22
Ernie Banks	CHC	NL	5/12/1970	Pat Jarvis	ATL	CHN	39.101	0	9204	18.41
Harmon Killebrew	MIN	AL	8/10/1971	Mike Cuellar	BAL	MIN	35.042	0	6671	13.34
Frank Robinson	BAL	AL	9/13/1971	Fred Scherman	DET	BAL	36.013	1	8427	16.85
Willie McCovey	SF	NL	6/30/1978	Jamie Easterly	ATL	ATL	40.171	0	7582	15.16
Reggie Jackson	CAL	AL	9/17/1984	Bud Black	KC	CAL	38.122	0	8179	16.36
Mike Schmidt	PHI	NL	4/18/1987	Don Robinson	PIT	PIT	37.203	2	7331	14.66
Eddie Murray	BAL	AL	9/6/1996	Felipe Lira	DET	BAL	40.195	0	11097	22.19
Mark McGwire	STL	NL	8/5/1999	Andy Ashby	SD	STL	35.308	0	5487	10.97
Barry Bonds	SF	NL	4/17/2001	Terry Adams	LAN	SF	36.267	1	7501	15.00
Sammy Sosa	CHC	NL	4/4/2003	Scott Sullivan	CIN	CIN	34.143	0	7032	14.06
Rafael Palmeiro	TEX	AL	5/11/2003	David Elder	CLE	TEX	38.229	2	9116	18.23
Ken Griffey Jr.	CIN	NL	6/20/2004	Matt Morris	STL	STL	34.212	0	7320	14.64

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