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He’s only kidding, isn’t he?

When the American League’s 1997 Most Valuable Player walked into the clubhouse Monday, the energy level and the decibels level changed for the spring.

And when Ken Griffey Jr., was hitting alone in a batting cage against a machine, he began bellowing insults at television crews attempting to photograph him.

Why was Junior so over-dramatically rude?

“Image,” he said. “Y’all have called Barry Bonds an ass for years. Now Mo Vaughn gets a DUI. What’s left? I want to be the first player to kill a reporter.”

Nice punch, but can you play?

Last season, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Jim Harbaugh broke a bone in his hand in an off-the-field altercation with former Buffalo Bills quarterback Jim Kelly, then an NBC commentator. It cost Harbaugh $147,000, one week’s pay, when he had to spend time on the non-football injury list.

Over the weekend, Harbaugh was traded to the Baltimore Ravens.

So what’s the connection?

The Ravens had been considering luring Kelly, 38, out of retirement. When the chance to get Harbaugh came up, any interest in Kelly disappeared.

And this blow to Kelly didn’t even cost Harbaugh any money.

Too bad for the Ravens it was a lose-lose deal.

Liar, liar, pants on fire

The Raiders never seem to run out of opponents, even in the off-season.

With all quiet on the football front, and no new threats to abandon Oakland for Los Angeles surfacing in the last week, the club has renewed its ongoing battle with Denver Broncos coach Mike Shanahan, who maintains the Raiders still owe him a quarter of a million dollars in back pay from the season-and-a-half he coached them beginning in 1988.

Amy Trask, the Raiders’ chief executive, sent out a copy of NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue’s ruling that the team owes Shanahan only $32,625. And why haven’t the Raiders paid that $32,625?

Because Shanahan committed perjury, Trask claims, in an arbitration hearing.

Asked his response to all this, Shanahan, through a Broncos spokesman, told the San Francisco Chronicle, “Tell (new Raiders coach) Jon Gruden to get all his money up front.”

Future crib-rattler

Spencer Dunkley, a 6-foot-11 former Delaware basketball player now playing in France, used to bemoan the attention his name drew.

But according to Sports Illustrated, now that he and his girlfriend are expecting their second child, a boy, Dunkley says the baby’s middle name will be Slam.

Will he wear a belt or a girth?

Akebono, the 516-pound sumo wrestler who took part in the opening ceremony of the Winter Games, is engaged.

Writes Ken Rosenthal of The Baltimore Sun: “Think he’ll trim down for the wedding, say, to 450?”

Can you imagine volunteering to cook for this man?

This just in (on tape)

New York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica, taking his shot at the television coverage of the Winter Olympics: “I didn’t know CBS was going to treat things like Picabo Street’s gold medal as an exclusive.”

The last word …

“Don’t be starting that stuff. You’ll ruin my reputation for not doing a damned thing.”

- Ken Griffey Jr., after it was noted that his arms and shoulders looked suspiciously bigger - as if he’d been working with weights during the off-season.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo