Home Isn’t Sweet for Griffey Jr.

Ken Griffey Jr. is tired of how he’s being treated in his hometown.

The injured Cincinnati Red outfielder lashed out Monday at the way fans and the media have kept him in the spotlight since he came home in a February 2000 trade with the Seattle Mariners.

With Griffey hurt again, some fans are questioning whether the trade was worthwhile.

“I get consistently beat up for no reason,” Griffey said, sitting in his locker after batting practice. “It’s been happening since the very first day I got here, and I’m tired of it. You try to bend over backward to do the right thing, and it just seems to get thrown in my face.

“I came here to play baseball. I took less money. I didn’t whine or anything, and this is the thanks I get? I don’t need that.”

Griffey tore the patella tendon in his right knee on April 7 and is on the disabled list. There’s no target date for his return, which is expected sometime in the next few weeks.

Griffey said he has been treated worse in Cincinnati than he was in Seattle.

Asked if he wants to leave Cincinnati, Griffey said, “I just want to play. I just want to get back on the field.”

He said his wife and children don’t come to Cinergy Field very often anymore because of comments they hear.

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The Texas Rangers’ Chan Ho Park threw 80 pitches in a simulated game and said he was ready to return. Park is on the disabled list because of a pulled right hamstring, an injury he aggravated in his Rangers’ debut April 1. He initially got hurt in a spring training game March 27.... The Chicago Cubs put catcher Todd Hundley on the 15-day disabled list because of a left thumb bruise and activated third baseman Bill Mueller.