They Say He’s Incomparable : Baseball: Ken Griffey Jr. was not awed by the major leagues, but major leaguers have been awed by the 20-year-old Mariner.

Matt Young, the veteran pitcher of the Seattle Mariners, smiles and shakes his head. He is talking about Ken Griffey Jr., the 20-year-old center field for the Mariners.

“He’ll be sitting next to me in the dugout when a new pitcher comes in and he’ll say, ‘Who’s this guy?’ ” Young said.

“I’ll say, ‘That’s Eckersley. Dennis Eckersley. One of the best relief pitchers in baseball.’

“And he’ll say, ‘Really? Never heard of him. What’s he throw?’

“I mean, he doesn’t know who half the pitchers are and doesn’t care.

“It’s like this is a great big game of Wiffle Ball to him.”

The nameplate above his locker reads, “The Kid.” Most of the Mariners call him Junior. He was the youngest player in the major leagues at 19 last year and he remains the youngest.

This may not be Wiffle Ball, but he has brought new meaning to the phrase, “See the ball and hit it.”

The bigs? The Show? What’s there to be intimidated about?

Didn’t he hang out with Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine when his dad was the regular right fielder? Didn’t he later take batting practice in Yankee Stadium when Dad was traded to New York?

Awe is in the eye of the beholder. For Junior, it’s more, “Aw, gee.”

“I was born with it,” he said of his swing. “I can’t help it if I make things look easy that some people think are difficult.”

The bloodlines are evident in his ability and poise.

Now 40, the senior Griffey is in his 18th major league season, back with the Reds in a utility role.

He and Junior became the first father-son combination to play in the major leagues at the same time when Junior made the jump from double-A last year, two years after he was the first player selected in the 1987 June draft.

Junior still dials Dad, Mom or both every day, but it’s not too soon for some to believe that Cooperstown will be calling eventually, that Junior has Hall of Fame talent unburdened by scouting reports on pitchers, technical changes in his swing or constant coaching as to where he should be stationed defensively. Give him room and he will outrun the mistakes.

“He’s going to be as good as he wants to be, and there’s not too many guys you can say that about,” Seattle Manager Jim Lefebvre said.

“I mean, his talent puts him above 90% of the people who play the game, and time will determine how much he wants it, what his commitment is. He has a chance to be one of the greatest players of his era.”

The Mariners won, 4-3, in Toronto Tuesday night. Griffey went three for five and is the American League leader in batting average at .379, in hits with 50 and in multihit games with 16.

He also has seven home runs, 23 runs batted in and is among the top 10 in nine offensive categories.

Gene Clines, the Mariners’ hitting coach, smiled and said, “No telling what kind of numbers he’ll put up when he gets serious about the game. I mean, I can’t imagine anybody being as good at his age. I call him Wonder Boy. I’ve never seen anything like him before.”

In the parlance of Clines and others, Griffey is a franchise player, as Roy Hobbs was. That Hobbs. The one in the movie, “The Natural.” The man who swung the hand-carved bat he labeled “Wonder Boy.”

Maybe there’s something to it. Mike Cameron, the baseball coach at Griffey’s alma mater, Moeller High in Cincinnati, said he saw the natural ability and came to the conclusion that Junior felt “he was born to play baseball.”

Junior dismisses the labels and comparisons. Merely trying to have fun and be himself, he says.

“Name it and he can do it,” said Lefebvre, who goes on to describe a left-handed batter who can hit with power and consistency to any field and whose defensive exploits already dominate most highlight films.

“Every time he makes one of those plays you think there’s no way he can top it, then he goes out and does it,” Lefebvre said.

The highlight of highlights occurred at Yankee Stadium recently when Griffey, positioned straightaway in medium center, raced about 40 yards to the fence in left center, dug a cleat in the foam padding, and took a home run away from Jesse Barfield, snaking his right arm far over the fence to make a catch Griffey called his best ever.

He then headed to the dugout with his glove held high and a grin brighter than the white lights of Broadway, the catch that much sweeter because it left Barfield standing angrily between first and second and because his dad, who had made a similar catch in the same stadium five years earlier, had flown in on a night off and was there to see it.

As Dad stood and cheered, a woman tapped him on the shoulder and asked, “Is that your son?”

Senior nodded, and the woman said: “Well, I just wanted you to know that Jesse Barfield’s my husband.”

Barfield came back in his next at-bat and hit a home run to deep right-center. As he crossed the plate, he said to the Seattle catcher, Scott Bradley, “If he had caught that one I’d have asked for a urine check.”

Smiled Junior, in recollection: “That’s the best thing about playing defense. I get to see somebody else but myself get mad.”

Said Senior from the Reds’ clubhouse: “I’m a proud dad. I’m as amazed and excited by some of the things he’s done at his age as everyone else is.

“I can’t wait to pick up the box scores in the mornings. I haven’t been playing that much, so it’s the only excitement I get.

“Then he calls and it’s like he was nine or 10 years old again. ‘Dad, did you see this? Did you see that?’ I mean, he can’t wait to tell me.”

Griffey was in his first professional season when his son was born in 1969 and said he never thought he would still be playing when Junior began to demonstrate superior skills at 13 or 14.

“I don’t believe in pressuring kids,” he said. “With Junior, you could see it was what he wanted and how much fun he was having playing it. My younger son (Craig, who is attending Ohio State on a football scholarship) didn’t like the game. There was no reason to force it on him.”

A .297 career hitter with season highs of 85 RBIs and 14 home runs, Griffey said it was impossible to compare his ability to his son’s. Junior is 6 feet 3 and 195 pounds.

“He is bigger, stronger and capable of doing more things than I ever could,” Griffey said. “He’s reached the major leagues at an age when I was just starting to raise a family and spend four or five years in the minors. There’s nothing to compare.”

At Moeller, a legendary producer of athletes--it has also sent Barry Larkin, Buddy Bell, Len Matuszek and Bill Long to the majors--the younger Griffey established school records with 11 home runs in a season and 20 in his career, marks broken this season by center fielder Adam Hyzdu, who had 13 in a season and 24 in his career and is also expected to be a first-round draft choice.

Coach Cameron reflected and said that Junior’s bat control was such he could almost toy with a pitcher.

“I’d pitch batting practice, and he was the only kid I ever had who really scared me,” Cameron said. “Even with a screen up (in front of the mound), his bat speed was so great that he was intimidating.”

Intimidating but never intimidated. Then and now, his parental legacy was evident.

“He was just never in awe,” Cameron said. “Scouts, general managers, cross checkers would come around and it was not a big thing to him. It was as if he’d say, ‘Oh well, who else is coming for dinner?’ ”

Griffey also played football and had decided to accept an Oklahoma scholarship if he wasn’t picked in the first three rounds of the draft. But there was never a chance of that. He was predicted to be the No. 1 selection for more than a year.

On the Seattle rating system, 50 to 59 translates to All-Star potential. Five Mariner scouts saw Griffey in high school and each scored him between 63 and 73--off the board, in other words.

Seattle?

“I don’t follow baseball like a fan does, so it didn’t matter to me,” Junior said. “What mattered is that my dad said they had outfield openings and it was a good opportunity.”

More than that, it was a franchise in need of a franchise player, and Griffey presented his case in the spring of 1989, after just two minor league seasons. He batted .359 with 33 hits and 21 RBIs, convincing the Mariners that further seasoning wasn’t necessary.

Griffey was leading all major league rookies with a .287 average, 13 homers and 45 RBIs when he broke a finger in mid-July, missed almost a month, pressed when he came back and finished third in American League rookie voting with 16 homers and 61 RBIs in 455 at-bats, plus 12 outfield assists and a league-leading six double plays.

Now, 15 pounds heavier and 1 1/2 inches taller than last year, Griffey is making a mockery of the sophomore jinx. Though vague and distracted in interviews, Griffey lights up the clubhouse with an infectious grin and sense of humor that shows no respect for older players.

He is also now a homeowner in Seattle, where his popularity can be measured by the sale, in only a year, of 800,000 candy bars bearing his name. A father-son poster--”The New Generation”--is also a hot seller, as are T-shirts bearing a likeness of the two Griffeys.

He is a million-dollar property earning a $180,000 salary in his second year, but not given, he said, to materialism except for nice cars. He knows, agent Brian Goldberg said, where his priorities must be.

Said hitting coach Clines: “He’s the type kid who doesn’t like to be embarrassed. He has an inner drive to show people he won’t make the same mistake twice.

“Last year we asked him to come out for early batting practice a couple of times to work on some things and he thought it was punishment. This year, he’s out early every day. I mean, I spend a lot of time thinking about how good he’s going to be when he’s 24 or 25 and it’s hard to imagine.”

Junior plays it cool. Dad and Mom have warned him how predictions can haunt you.

“If I stay healthy I should do well and have a lot of fun,” he said. “I’m working at it, learning a lot, trying to improve day by day and year by year. I never want to be satisfied.”

It is said better by the words of a rap song written by Mariner broadcaster Rick Rizzs and now a popular request on Seattle stations.

“Every time you see him,

“Griffey is no hype.

“He goes four for four.

“His future’s looking bright.”