February 12

The Reds announced that Friday was their biggest ticket sale day in history, beating the record set Thursday. There were lines outside the Cinergy Field ticket windows Friday, lines inside to fill out applications for season tickets, and there were reports that scalpers were asking $4,000 for tickets to the home opener. In windows around the city, there were signs that read, "Welcome Home, Junior."

Ken Griffey Jr. is not Lindbergh or Eisenhower. In Cincinnati, he's bigger, and if you're a Reds fan who survived Marge Schott, is there a fan of any team in any sport who feels better right now? Perhaps the best player in the game decided it was more important where he plays -- at home in Cincinnati -- than for how much.

In this era of mercenary hypocrites, Junior said from the beginning that money wasn't his ruling planet, and he proved it by signing a $116 million contract that the union considered Mondesi-esque. It isn't possible to put any hypocritical label on him, because he was offered $140 million by the Mariners and told it was negotiable; if he'd accepted the trade to the Mets, he could have named his price and had the 7 train thrown in as well.

How great is this for the Reds? Tony Perez, Sparky Anderson and Marty Brenneman are going into the Hall of Fame this July, Junior's coming home and he doesn't even care about keep his number 24, because he so respects what those Reds did that he wanted them to retire Tony Perez's 24. "There are few better moments for baseball," said one general manager Friday. "The best player in our sport cares more about his children and family than being paid the highest number. What a unique concept." Friday, Junior told friends that his son Trey was all excited, because Ken Sr. is the Reds batting coach and "now I'll be able to go to the park with Grandpa every day."

The National League Central now has the three top home-run hitters of the past five years, with Junior, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa -- not to mention Jeff Bagwelland Kerry Wood. The Reds may now have the best offensive team in the league, and if you think Griffey's home runs may take a dive in the NL, as many hitters struggle when they switch leagues, Cinergy Field is hitter-friendly and has the fourth-highest home effect in the NL over the past three seasons.

Last season, the Reds were the best offensive team in the NL Central. They led the division in homers (209), runs (869), run differential (+154) and the best offensive measure, the sum of their slugging and on-base percentages (.792). Now you put Junior in the middle of Barry Larkin, Dante Bichette, Sean Casey and Dmitri Young, and you have a devastating 2-3-4-5-6 lineup. If Pokey Reese can increase his on-base percentage from the leadoff spot, they could edge close to 1,000 runs.

For all the excitement -- and Griffey will generate a lot more than the $6-8 million annually the Reds publically projected -- what's amazing is the Reds have put this team together and still are under $47 million in payroll. General manager Jim Bowden, who created buzz last January by trading for Greg Vaughn, has now put Cincinnati back on the baseball 'A' list as the man who brought Griffey home to pursue Henry Aaron's 755.

Once Griffey refused the trades to the Mets and Pirates and cleaned every other possible deal off the table, Bowden brilliantly negotiated this deal like Steve McQueen in "The Cincinnati Kid." He never backed off his position that while Griffey would be the ultimate franchise player for the Reds, this is still a small market, and that to maintain a good team that will keep Junior's interest, Cincinnati has to keep developing young players to hedge the free-agent market.

To Bowden's credit, once Marge Schott left, he threw money into scouting and development. As this negotiation unfurled, he didn't budge from his core of young players. He wouldn't do Pokey. He wouldn't do Travis Dawkins, because he says, "Whenever the Reds have been good, they've been great up the middle." When Larkin moves to third base or left field, Dawkins is the shortstop.

Several general managers suggested that the commissioner's office could come down on the Reds for tampering. Did they start negotiating with Griffey's attorney Brian Goldberg before they officially had permission? Perhaps. But how do you prove anything? Look, Ken Sr., Ken Jr., the very ethical Goldberg, Bowden and team CEO John Allen have known what it would take to sign Junior since before Christmas. So? Dinner table conversation.

While the NL Central has now imported Griffey and McGwire for a cost of Mike Cameron and a bunch of bodies, understand this Griffey thing was not a trade. The court of baseball opinion has judged that the Tigers badly overpaid in both players and dollars for Juan Gonzalez, but at least the Rangers had leverage. When the Yankees moved Christian Guzman and Eric Milton for Chuck Knoblauch, the Twins had leverage. The Mariners had no leverage. They could have kept Griffey and taken two draft picks when he left as a free agent -- one around the 20th selection, one around 40th -- or they could have waited until July and taken what the Reds gave them. But the feeling was that Junior had made it so clear that he did not want to return to Seattle at this point, because of the press and the death threats, that he would have been a distraction.

History is probabably going to look back and remember the Mariners as the team that lost Junior, Alex Rodriguez and Randy Johnson. Some of it was bad fortune. Rodriguez was given the 16 extra days of service time necessary for him to reach 2001 free agency, so they ended up with two franchise players with their contracts up at the same time. The decision by president Chuck Armstrong and GM Woody Woodward to trade Johnson on July 31, 1998, resulted because they thought they could not afford all three, and they wanted to sign Griffey.

When ownership changed and Pat Gillick was brought in after last season, the Mariners tried to go back to the $140 million offer made to Junior during the summer. But Griffey had made up his mind that his marriage with Seattle had lost its spark, and that he wanted his kids to go to school normally. The plan was to go to the GM meetings in November, deal Griffey, put a full-court press on A-Rod, and if they couldn't sign him, go to the winter meetings in December and trade him as well.

The first problem with trading Griffey was that he had the right to veto any trade because he was a 10/5 man. So that limited Gillick's market to the Braves, Astros, Mets and Reds. The Braves weren't interested. The Astros were cutting payroll. The Mets and Reds were interested, but didn't step up; ironically, if the Mets had offered in November what they offered in December (Roger Cedeno, Octavio Dotel and perhaps Armando Benitez), Cincinnati would have been forced to up the ante to including Reese or Dawkins. By the time the Griffey interest peaked at the winter meetings in Anaheim the second week in December, Griffey had already told the Mariners where he really wanted to go -- namely, home to Cincinnati.

Gillick had one very good deal with Pittsburgh, figuring it's an easy US Airways run to Orlando, and the Pirates' Bradenton spring training site is closer to Junior's house than the Reds' camp in Sarasota. The Mariners were to get outfielder Chad Hermansen and pitcher Jason Schmidt. Griffey reiterated he would not go to Pittsburgh. Then the Mets stepped forward with Dotel, Cedeno and a list of three players that may or may not have included Benitez (if they could sign Junior). At which point Griffey basically told them, "How many times do I have to tell you -- Cincy or Seattle?"

So now the Mariners have to move on. If it is true, as A-Rod's friends have asserted, that there was some tension between Rodriguez and Junior, then Seattle management will try to take advantage of that, massage A-Rod, make him King of Microsoft and Nintendo and give him about $176 million for eight years. A-Rod's friends are wagering he won't budge, that Scott Boras wants the floor next winter and Rodriguez wants to be baseball's Ricky Martin, which he'll never be in the Pacific Northwest.

Could Gillick trade him in July and get three real prospects? Probably. But if the Mariners are in the AL West race, how can they? So Gillick has to now decide if he cannot sign Rodriguez between now and April 1, is there a team willing to trade three or four players for him? Would the Braves do shortstop Rafael Furcal, pitcher Bruce Chen, pitcher Jason Marquis and outfielder George Lombard, then try to sign free agents A-Rod and Chipper Jones? Doubtful, but ...

Gillick's first goal is to get a left-handed-hitting outfielder. He gave up trying to deal with the Angels for Jim Edmonds. He has talked to Boston about Troy O'Leary, but thus far it has gone nowhere. He may take Al Martin from the Pirates because he'll take all of Martin's contract; the Mets (who insist Pittsburgh must take Rickey Henderson) and Padres (who want the Bucs to eat some of Martin's contract) are also involved. "The Pirates may give Pat a prospect to take the contract," says one GM. If he goes right-handed, Gillick could get Rondell White from the Expos.

What's interesting is that while Griffey and Gonzalez have left the AL West, the Mariners and Rangers may have begun building better teams. In the five years of three-division play, the division has won one playoff series -- the Mariners in 1995. That's it. "The Mariners and Rangers are moving away from the Cleveland philosophy and towards the Yankee-Brave philosophy," says one GM. "In the short term, it isn't glamorous; in the long term it may work." The AL West had the top three home-run teams in baseball last season. Check their October record the last four years: 2-12.

While the Oakland A's loom on the horizon as the favorites if they pull off trades this week for Edmonds and Ramiro Mendoza, the Mariners are retooling in a real ballpark with a real concept -- pitching and defense. With Jamie Moyer and Aaron Sele, they have two winning veterans. In Gil Meche, 17-game winner Freddy Garcia, John Halama and Brett Tomko, they have four young pitchers whose ceilings run from No. 1 starter to No. 3. Watch Tomko, who has undegone a vigorous offseason program and is ready to take off after a sidetracked season. Then by August, they could have 6-foot-10 lefty Ryan Anderson ready to step in. They have added Arthur Rhodes and Kazuhiro Sasaki to their bullpen, and, remember, Tomko was a college closer at Florida Southern. With Carlos Guillen, John Olerud, Rodriguez, Edgar Martinez, David Bell and one or two more bats thrown in, the offense should be good enough to complement the pitching.

Hey, the Reds are not in the World Series yet. Their 3-4 starters are still Ron Villone and Steve Parris. The fifth starter may be Mark Portugal if Rob Bell isn't ready. Scott Sullivan has thrown 100 innings two straight years, and the Mariners were afraid of Scott Williamson as a blowout waiting to happen (his arm was bothering him at the end of the season), so the bullpen that carried them to 96 wins could spring leaks.

Down the line, while Senior Griffey has gone to Arizona and Puerto Rico to prepare himself to manage, and deserves the opportunity, what happens that one future year if he takes over and the Reds don't play up to expectations? What kind of strain will that be? Hopefully nothing compared to what happened in Baltimore, when Cal Ripken Sr. was fired as scapegoat a week into the terrible 1988 season and Cal Jr. has never felt the same about management.

These are family folks, these Griffeys, from Trey to Ken Jr. to Ken Sr., and hopefully baseball never destroys what they have. What they have right now is the best pure story in professional sports, because it really is right from the heart.

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