With Griffey, M’s fans don’t see red

SEATTLE – One day during spring training 1998 the Seattle Mariners boarded a bus for a game in Scottsdale, Ariz. – all except Ken Griffey Jr. and Edgar Martinez, who were given the afternoon off by manager Lou Piniella.

As the bus pulled away, Junior hollered and waved goodbye as if bidding bon voyage to the Titanic – not a bad analogy for the ‘98 M’s – and resumed a loud and loose session of batting practice with Martinez and hitting coach Jesse Barfield for the exclusive amusement of a little knot of tourists.

When it was over, he happily gathered up an armful of baseballs and lobbed them underhand over the fence to his audience.

But it was Edgar who stayed to sign them all.

And that was Junior. No matter what he did, he always left you wanting more.

That was Junior as a Mariner and it’s been Junior as one of the Cincinnati Reds, whose uniform he wore – oddly, it seems, even now – on his first return to Safeco Field since he grimly forced his way into a trade eight years ago.

It was true even on Friday night. As the M’s rolled over 16-1 to one of the worst teams in baseball, Seattle manager Mike Hargrove was tossed for arguing balls and strikes, the sixth-largest Safeco Crowd in history – 46,340 – fled to the exits before the seventh inning and Griffey himself was excused for the evening after his third strikeout.

Yes, even Junior left early on his own night.

In a game in which the Reds swatted five home runs off some truly toxic Mariners pitching, Griffey managed but a single. And yet contrary to that leave-‘em-wanting-more ethos, he may have fulfilled his only real obligation during an emotional and heartfelt pregame ceremony.

“I didn’t realize,” he said, “how much I missed being in Seattle.”

And that was it.

If a cold heart remained in Safeco, it thawed. All was forgiven, presuming it hadn’t been already.

It didn’t have to be an admission that he made a mistake in demanding out after the 1999 season, because he sticks to family concerns as being the wind which sailed that ship – even if there were some barnacles attached. No, it was simply enough for him to acknowledge that not only was he a significant part of our cultural identity in the Northwest all those years, but that the city was a big part of his.

Reportedly he had fretted over what his reception might be here – perceived slights and prior criticisms linger forever with Griffey, and he assumes they do with the rest of us.

But he needn’t have worried. The airwaves and broadsheets have been in full gush for a week, and the tape of Martinez’s game-winning double against the Yankees in 1995 and Griffey’s “smile under the pile” is worn so thin it appears to be in black and white.

The initial ovation lasted three minutes, and Griffey tucked a tongue under his lower lip to hold it all together.

“It was a lot more than I expected,” he allowed.

Well, so was Junior.

Before he was 20 years old, his accomplishments in Seattle were dizzying – a two-homer game, an inside-the-park beauty against the Yankees, a game-winning pinch-hit dinger just for openers. The quick-draw smile and the backward-cap goofiness immediately connected him to the casual Northwest sports fan hungry for a superstar, though we never saw the incremental steps of growing up.

“I learned to play baseball here,” Griffey said. “For a 19-year-old kid, it was on-the-job training – with an organization that allowed me to be me.

“Harold Reynolds, Dave Valle, Alvin Davis, Jim Presley, Jeff Leonard all around me to help me. They were like my big brothers telling me, ‘You’re going to learn to play baseball the right way. A lot of people will tell you yes because of who you are, but I’m going to tell you if you’re doing something wrong on or off the field.’ “

The only thing he did wrong was leave, even if he believes he did it for the best of reasons.

Because it hasn’t worked out for anybody. Yes, the M’s had that magical 2001 season without him, but got less out of it than they did with Junior in 1995. Cincinnati has been woeful. Griffey himself has endured Jobish indignities physically – torn hamstrings and tendons and dislocated shoulders.

And now the biggest indignity of all: playing right field, against his will.

Asked if manager Jerry Narron might put him in center for old times’ sake this weekend, Griffey cracked, “I’m trying to get to play shortstop.”

The Reds are simply trying to keep him in the game, and at age 37 – even with all the injuries – there would seem to be plenty of game left. He has 19 homers this season, 582 lifetime. If he tops 600 by season’s end, is there reason to think he might not eventually catch the blackest hat of them all, Barry Bonds?

“I’m not going to hang around just to break somebody’s record,” he insisted. “It’s not fair to me or the people watching.”

Sometimes, the superstars do care – if only a little. Among the thank yous he passed out Friday was one to the fans in the cheap seats, the outfield “for supporting us when we were terrible and not giving up on us.” He advised the current Mariners to “just keep pushing, because this city is all yours.”

But before he did, he drank in an unexpected reality.

“Never could I imagine,” he said, “that it would be like this coming back.”

What do you know? Maybe for a change, Seattle left him wanting more.