Rain Ties Up Junior’s Debut--and Game

Welcome home, Junior. Take a bow and grab a towel.

Ken Griffey Jr. made his long-awaited return to his hometown Monday and it was just as if he’d never left . . . Seattle.

Cincinnati got unrelenting rain Monday and the first opening-day tie in 35 years. The Reds blew a three-run lead and wound up tied, 3-3, with the Milwaukee Brewers in the sixth inning when the tarp was summoned.

The city’s notoriously fickle opening-day weather broke just long enough for Junior to get a 20-second pregame ovation, go 0 for 2 and see his father shed a tear over his long-awaited return.

“It was awesome,” Griffey Jr. said, wearing a team warmup jacket and his cap turned backward in his trademark style. “It was something I wasn’t expecting. It was fun. The biggest thing is it reminded me of my first opening day 12 years ago.”

Seattle had a dome as insurance against its many days like this. In Cincinnati, the largest regular-season crowd in stadium history could do nothing but break out the parkas, peek through the umbrellas and wait.

Home plate umpire Randy Marsh waited three hours before finally calling the game, which will be replayed from the first inning tonight.

All statistics from Monday’s game count, leaving former Dodger Davey Lopes with an unusual debut as Brewer manager. It was the first time in the majors that teams opened with a tie since April 12, 1965, when the St. Louis-Chicago game at Wrigley Field was called because of darkness after 11 innings with the score 10-10.

“I didn’t think Mother Nature would enter into the equation, but she did, unfortunately,” Lopes said.

She stepped back just long enough for Griffey and the city to say hello. The 55,596 fans gave Griffey the loudest and longest pregame ovation before the rain came into play.

Wearing long red sleeves and a batting glove on his right hand only, Griffey bounced out of the dugout when his name was called fourth, took his rightful place along the first base line and waved his cap in all directions.

He was taken aback.

“I just didn’t know what to expect,” he said. “I knew there would be noise. I didn’t figure it would be that loud, that long.”

Neither did his father, who was in the dugout.

“It was just great to have him home,” said Griffey Sr., the club’s bench coach. “My emotions were mixed. The ovation was great. I didn’t know how I was going to handle it. I had a little tear in my eye.”

It was perfect . . . almost. Griffey Jr.’s mother, Birdie, was waiting for the stadium elevator at that moment.

“I missed it,” she said. “Don’t worry, the elevator operator heard about it.”

Minutes later, dozens of flashbulbs went off when Griffey ran out to center field to start the game, prompting him to wave his black-and-red cap again.

It was downhill from there.

Griffey couldn’t get the ball out of the infield in his two at-bats. He nervously popped out in the first and grounded out in the third.

“I was just trying to pick out a good pitch and I swung at some pretty bad ones,” he said.