Griffey Is Waiting for Call

Ken Griffey Jr. hasn’t been invited to the Monday home run derby that is a prelude to Tuesday’s All-Star game at Boston’s Fenway Park and doesn’t know if he will be.

“Maybe they’ll ask me to the singles-hitting contest instead,” the Seattle Mariner center fielder said with an impish grin Tuesday night in Anaheim, knowing there is no singles-hitting contest.

Last year, it will be recalled, Griffey’s participation in the home run derby at Coors Field came only after Frank Robinson talked him into it.

He had initially said he wouldn’t participate because of the toll such a contest can take on your swing and his need for rest. The crowd wasn’t appeased when he reconsidered. The leading vote-getter was roundly booed.

“Juan Gonzalez didn’t participate. Neither did Sammy Sosa. They didn’t get booed. Was that fair to me?” Griffey said.

Griffey said he wasn’t happy with the reception but didn’t consider it totally negative.

He said that because fans see him as playing with a flair, going out and having fun at it, they relate to him better than to Gonzalez or Sosa.

“They know me as the kid growing up next door,” Griffey said. “There’s a sense of familiarity. The expectations are different. Still, Sammy has 30 home runs at the break [last year], doesn’t participate and ends up the season as a hero. I get booed and have to live with it.”

The reluctant Griffey won last year’s home run derby and also edged Sosa as the leading vote-getter for this year’s game, the fifth time he received that honor.

He will receive a $100,000 bonus, as stipulated in his contract, for being elected, and $25,000 as the top vote-getter. He will be required, as the leading vote-getter, to be at a news conference in Boston, necessitating a red-eye flight from Los Angeles Sunday night. The Mariners, he said, fly more than anybody in baseball because of their northwest locale and “no matter where I am it always seems like I am taking a red-eye to the All-Star game.”

But, Griffey added: “I realize there are fathers who spend hard-earned money to take their families to the park and see us play. I respect them and appreciate that many of them took the time to punch out the ballots for me. It means a lot to me.”