If Griffey were to return, which one would it be?

SEATTLE – Maybe nostalgia should be a controlled substance.

Effects both narcotic and hallucinogenic certainly were in evidence here over the weekend, when the return of Ken Griffey Jr. to Safeco Field veered from a correct and emotional homecoming into the inevitable referendum to Bring Him Back, with even Junior himself upping the dosage.

There’s even a website up out there in Bandwidth Wasteland.

Whew. Didn’t think they’d ever get around to it.

Perhaps the notion of Junior Redux was not to be avoided, treacly as the Safeco atmosphere was during the series with Cincinnati. The only restrained part of the weekend was Griffey’s performance and then only until Sunday, when he slugged two home runs to move past Mark McGwire on the all-time list and made a sliding, shoulder-roll catch for a double play in the second.

Of course, there were visceral asterisks. The first-inning dinger barely cleared the glove of a leaping Willie Bloomquist at the bullpen wall, and Junior was so confused as to the outcome that he stopped dead in his tracks for almost 10 seconds after rounding first base. And the catch was made in right field – Junior is only a center fielder in his imagination now – and Griffey the Mariner would have closed on the sinking liner without needing to leave his feet.

Which brings us to today’s thesis: that what the Bring Him Back faction visualizes is not so much the current Griffey – who seems restored but not indomitable – and certainly not the future Griffey but the old one, and only selected images at that.

Sentimental, yes. Smart, not so much.

Whether to hold Griffey in the same regard isn’t as clear, though he already leans to the sentimental.

“I think I owe it to myself and the people of Seattle to retire as a Mariner,” he told Fox Sports Net Northwest in an interview taped before Sunday’s 3-2 Mariners victory.

He was not quite as emphatic in his postgame remarks.

“As an athlete, you always want to retire with the team you started with,” Griffey said. “You look at Emmitt Smith and everybody else that moves on – they want to come back and retire with the same organization.

“I’m no different than anybody else. But I’ve got a few more years. I don’t think it’s anytime soon.”

Still, he’s obviously opened the door to the idea of a return, and that would be the Mariners constituency stampeding through.

Griffey’s Emmitt Smith analogy notwithstanding, this forward-into-the-past condition isn’t peculiar to Seattle, but surely to baseball. If memory serves, there was no campaign here to abet Shawn Kemp’s doomed NBA comeback and any number of revered Seahawks have finished their careers elsewhere with no entreaties to ownership.

But it’s a charming peculiarity. No sport cleaves more to its history, and that’s not a bad thing.

A more truly Seattle subtext was why Junior (and Randy Johnson long before him) were so warmly received on their returns despite traumatic partings while Alex Rodriguez continues to be so reviled – not that it should be a mystery. Junior and Johnson were in fact the stars who hoisted the franchise out of the fen after considerable angst, and Griffey’s charisma in particular made him a transcendent personality. A-Rod, by comparison, was a Mariner for just five (statistically splendid) seasons, was disingenuous about his intentions of staying and then was rewarded with an obscene contract.

Plus, time softened Griffey’s landing, though it would have been downy anyway.

Would that be as true of the next one?

Sure, if it’s next week. Griffey’s homers Sunday gave him 21 on the year, and obviously the Mariners could use that pop. The truth is, if the M’s covet Griffey at all, they should covet him now that he’s back to being a potential difference maker and not just for the farewell tour however many years down the road.

Of course, there’s always the issue of what it would take to pry him away from the Reds – the clubs have failed to come together on a deal before. The flipside of Griffey’s resurgence is that he now commands more value in return. And, yes, there’s always the issue of whether the Mariners are willing to take on Griffey’s contract – $12.5 million this year and next, with almost as much deferred, and a $16.5 club option in 2009 – for a 37-year-old player who has missed 418 games with injuries the last six years.

It’s especially dangerous territory for the M’s, who have a poor history with the ancients. The ugly freefall of 2004-05 was precipitated largely because the citizenry had become so attached to its aging array of stars that management was loathe to turn them over before they keeled over.

And just how forgiving would those old memories be if they had to witness Griffey not running out ground balls or taking the extra base on a daily basis, or had to be reminded of his more petulant complaints?

But the last-minute change to the Reds lineup on Sunday that put Griffey back in right field was his idea because “it wouldn’t be fair to the people of Seattle for me to just DH.” And he not only put on a show, but he graciously waved and doffed his cap at all the appropriate times and put a special touch on the weekend.

“I wish it could be like that all the time,” he said wistfully.

Yes. But it wouldn’t be and never quite was. That’s the difference between history and nostalgia.