Junior’s visage is now grim, his eyes unwavering. His stance, so perfectly upright, seems balletic, and the black bat is coiled, 34 inches of menace, over his shoulder. His swing is remarkably fast–80 mph by Griffey’s own estimate–and when it connects with the baseball, the sound echoes like a rifle shot through the near-empty stadium. The ball soars into the upper deck. ““I just swing hard and whatever happens, happens,’’ Junior says. Then, as if recalling the volumes written deconstructing this art, he shrugs and smiles: ““See it–and hit it.''
See it and hit it! But at 27 years old and already in his ninth season, George Kenneth Griffey Jr. is not only the Zen master of the game; he is also the best player. The regular season ends this week, and Griffey is on track to lead the American League in both home runs and runs batted in for the first time. In center field, he will have made as many over-the-shoulder catches as any NFL receiver. And he’s a shoo-in for his first MVP award. ““I don’t worry about personal bests,’’ Griffey says. ““I just want to win ball games. The only thing I want to be holding is that World Series trophy.''
By now, even casual fans know that the Seattle superstar has been chasing Roger Maris’s single-season home-run record of 61. He had 53 homers through Saturday. And with just seven games remaining, he will almost certainly fall short. Barring a miracle finish, so will the game’s other premier basher, Mark McGwire, who had 54. But for Griffey’s breakthrough year, McGwire, at the age of 33, might be enjoying all the attention. He is the only player in baseball history other than Babe Ruth to hit 50 in consecutive seasons (Griffey had only 49 last year). In midseason, McGwire was traded from the Oakland A’s to the St. Louis Cardinals. Last week he signed a three-year deal with the Cards for $28.5 million–a figure well below baseball’s current market standards–because he likes the fans and the community. ““It makes me float every time I come to the ballpark and play in this stadium for these fans,’’ he said.
McGwire’s season ends this week, but Griffey figures to keep playing. Seattle is a legitimate World Series contender. There’s more to the Mariners than Junior. With baseball’s highest-scoring offense, its most dominant pitcher (““The Big Unit,’’ Randy Johnson) and a cardiac-arrest bullpen that can quickly undo Griffey’s best efforts, Seattle has become the game’s most thrilling team.
Its leader is not a fan of the reflexive ““I’’ with which most superstars start every sentence. ““I’d rather talk about anyone else on the team; I’d rather talk about my worst enemy than talk about me,’’ Griffey says. He loves talking about his father, though. Ken Griffey Sr., a star on Cincinnati’s legendary ““Big Red Machine’’ in the ’70s, taught him to ““let your bat do the talking and let your glove shut everybody else up.''
But even the well-mannered Griffey can’t keep silent in the face of baseball’s management bungles. He’d like to see baseball portrayed as a hip funfest rather than as a nostalgic reverie. ““A basketball commercial comes on, you want to go out and play,’’ he says. ““But look at the baseball spots. “Baseball is heaven.’ Yuck!’’ Closer to home, he blasted Seattle management over a few decisions this season, complained publicly that expectations for him were unreasonably high and, at the all-star game, actually groused that he was ““the Rodney Dangerfield of baseball–liked but not respected.’’ It is undoubtedly a sign of maturity that Griffey is willing to offer up honest feelings that are at odds with his genuine-nice-guy persona. But his teammates haven’t detected any changes on the field. ““He stays at a level keel, always within himself,’’ says outfielder Jay Buhner, his best friend on the team. ““That’s what makes him so great.''
Griffey does get angry–almost always, he says, at himself. His dad taught him never to take the game home from the park. ““If Dad went 0 for 4 or 4 for 4, we kids didn’t know,’’ says Junior, who has a sister and brother. But Griffey isn’t sure his son, Trey, 3, and daughter, Taryn, 1, will be able someday to say the same. He can enter ““the zone’’ and ““shut it all out’’ at home almost as well as he does in the batter’s box–““and that gets me in trouble with my wife.’’ But Griffey has never shut out his dad and still talks to him daily. He considers his greatest thrill the 1990 game in which Junior and Senior played together in the Seattle outfield. ““You can break all the records,’’ says Junior. ““I can say, “I played with my dad.’ Me and Dad sat next to each other in the dugout. He treated for lunch.''
Griffey says his father didn’t ordain that scenario. In high school, Junior was encouraged to play football and basketball, too. What clinched a baseball career, though, was his discovery that he could turn pro right out of high school. ““I just said, “Wow!’ ’’ (And that was before he had any idea that by his 10th reunion he’d be earning $8.5 million in salary and $5 million in endorsements annually.)
Quickly all baseball was saying ““Wow!’’ Griffey homered on the very first pitch he saw in the minors and, at the age of 19, on the first pitch to him in Seattle’s Kingdome. And he’s been hitting them out–almost 300 now–ever since. If Griffey stays healthy (he has already missed chunks of several seasons with injuries), he will remain a threat to Maris. And inevitably talk will turn to Hank Aaron’s career record of 755. Aaron’s chase of Babe Ruth became a bitter struggle in which he felt besieged by racism. Changing times and Junior’s sweet, buoyant personality render such issues moot. San Francisco Giants manager Dusty Baker, a teammate of Aaron’s in his record-breaking year, says Griffey transcends race. ““There are probably more white kids who want to be Junior than black kids,’’ he says. ““People don’t see Junior as being black. Junior is just Junior.''
And being Junior means baseball will always be simplicity itself. ““The way I figure it, if the pitcher is going to get me out,’’ he says, ““he’ll to have to throw at least one pitch over the plate.’’ Griffey casts a knowing eye toward the right-field grandstands. And the simple truth seems to echo through the stadium. See it and hit it.
Hitting more than their stride, sluggers Ken Griffey Jr. and Mark McGwire are having their biggest home-run seasons ever. Their records through Sept. 20:
Profile Griffey McGwire Height 6'3” 6'5” Weight (lb.) 205 250 Bats Left Right 1997 statistics Games 151 148 At-bats 587 512 Hits 177 140 Home runs 53 54 Runs batted in 141 115 Strikeouts 117 149 Average .302 .273 1997 home runs vs. Left-handers 14 12 vs. Right-handers 39 42 Home 26 26 Away 27 28 Grass 18 47 Turf 35 7 Day 14 17 Night 39 37
