What Might Have Been, and What Still Is

By WILLIAM C. RHODEN
Sports of The Times
July 14, 2007

With Barry Bonds on the verge of becoming baseball’s career home run leader, legions of baseball fans lament that an ogre — their word, not mine — is going to be the keeper of the sport’s flame. Many wish it would have been Junior.

Ken Griffey Jr. certainly would give a lighter touch to a home run vigil that alternately seems like a death march and a death watch as Bonds approaches the record.

Griffey is approachable, an easy conversationalist; he’s a family-first kind of person.

But, alas. This is sports: unscripted drama. You can’t choose who you’d like to have a date with destiny. And Griffey, for his part, has been philosophical about his juxtaposition with Bonds.

“Every superhero had a villain, or somebody they didn’t like,” said Griffey, who is a friend of Bonds and has been vocal about supporting Bonds’s home run quest. “Not everyone gets what they want, not everyone gets what they deserve.”

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Experts like to predict which young player will break what record. Now the talk is that Alex Rodriguez will be the next to break the home run record. In an industry built on the vagaries of a fragile body, these predictions are foolish.

Back in 1994, 1995, we thought that Griffey would be the one to break the home run record. Experts also thought a Mariners team that had Randy Johnson and Rodriguez would be a championship dynamo.

Back then, Seattle was Camelot. The Mariners were young playoff contenders and Griffey was being favorably compared with Willie Mays. He had the same “Say, hey” jubilation, the effervescent smile and hat turned backward that embodied the joy of the game.

In reality, I think of Griffey’s baseball life as much closer to Mickey Mantle’s: awesome talent, sabotaged repeatedly by injury. The signature of his career was the promise of youth marred by a succession of tough-luck injuries. Part of it was his playing style. He had a reckless abandon, crashing into walls, diving and going all out. Some of it was bad luck: a slip in the shower, a break while wrestling with his son.

The miracle of Griffey’s career is its resilience. After an intense four-year battle with injuries, Griffey has bounced back yet again. He was the top vote getter for the National League All-Star team. Fans sent a strong message: Junior was missed.

Griffey started and starred for the National League in a losing cause. The performance reminded so many of why we missed Junior play the game of baseball. It reminded us of what he could have done.

“For a couple of years it was touch and go in terms of the public feeling confident to push my name out there for the ballot for the All-Star vote,” said Griffey, who went 0 for 4 last night in the Reds’ 8-4 victory against the Mets. “What the vote said was, ‘Hey, we’d like to see this guy again, he’s been healthy, he deserves to go, he’s put up some good numbers, we want to see him.’ ”

But he has also not played on a championship stage since his days in Seattle, and the lack of a championship, or anything even approaching a championship moment, has left Griffey frustrated.

He has not asked for a trade, but is open to one if the stars align. He has everything else: oodles of money and great statistics (he is tied with Frank Robinson on the home run list). He has scars as well that attest to how hard he has played the game.

Griffey is healthy now, he has declared himself fit and back, ready to be a force. But what kind of force can Griffey be in Cincinnati? The team is miserable, hopelessly out of contention.

Griffey’s presence in Cincinnati was, in large part, a family move. He wanted to play closer to Orlando, Fla., where his family lived. Seattle had been Camelot, but after a decade with Seattle — 1989 to 1999 — Griffey asked for a trade. The Mariners shipped Griffey to the Reds.

He picked Cincinnati because the city fit his travel requirements: a three-hour flight from Florida.

“Sometimes you have to do what’s best for your family, not what best for you,” he said. “As a dad, I’ve got to be around; my dad was real supportive of me growing up. I wanted to be that way toward my son.”

While Cincinnati flounders, Seattle is a contender, and Ichiro Suzuki, who replaced Griffey in center field, signed a lucrative contract extension. “Would I do it all over again?” Griffey said. “Yes.”

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All I want to see is a healthy Griffey playing in the postseason. He returned to Seattle recently and was treated as a long-lost hero, with standing ovations and tributes usually reserved for a retiring player. Perhaps there is a Griffey in Seattle’s immediate future.

He was 29 when he left town for family considerations. “Now I’m 37 and my family said, ‘You go where you want to.’ ”

Griffey and his wife have three children. The oldest is 13, the youngest 5. His wife has given him the green light to go if the getting is good. “She said, ‘If they feel they want to trade you and you find the right fit, we’ll go anywhere.’ ”

If the Reds truly have the best interests of baseball at heart, they’ll trade Griffey to a contender. Baseball could use a ray of sunshine.

E-mail: wcr@nytimes.com