Feeling Like 'The Kid' Again

"Being a dad," Griffey says, "is bigger than anything I've done on the field. To watch them grow more and more independent as they get older. . . . They get further and further away from you -- but never too far, because they still need you close to them."

When Trey, tall and lean, comes into the clubhouse after taking some cuts in the batting cage, Griffey's eyes follow him, and Trey feels them on his back. "Watch this," Griffey whispers, out of his son's earshot. "Watch what he picks up." Trey circles around to his father's locker, reaches down and picks up a football that is lying on the floor. He sits on a stool and spins the ball around in his hands.

"I knew it," Griffey says. "That kid loves football."

This spring, Griffey turned the unceremonious release of a teammate into a life lesson for Trey. Trey happened to be hanging around the Reds' spring training facility on the day the team released pitcher Josh Hancock, who had reported to camp overweight and out of shape. Trey saw the player get called into the manager's office, emerging later to begin cleaning out his locker.

"It might have been the best thing that ever happened to us as father and son," Griffey says. "I've told him so many times: 'Always give 100 percent, because you never know when it's going to be your last. Take one play off in football, and it could be a touchdown.'

"So when Hancock got released, for [Trey] to see that firsthand . . . I kept turning around saying: 'See? You see that? You see that?' Finally, by about the third time, he says, 'I get it, Dad.' But from that point on, I've seen a difference in him. My dad always told me: 'There's going to be a guy bigger than you, faster than you. Just don't let anyone outwork you.' "

Taryn, on the other hand, loves basketball. Only a little more than five pounds at birth, she was two weeks old when she suddenly topped breathing at home, and Griffey, ever the clutch performer, saved her by using a suctioning device to clear out her breathing passageway.

"From that point on, she was daddy's little girl," Griffey says. "She's like the queen of the house. She's already told me what kind of car she wants." And what car would that be? "A Hummer," he says, with a look of defeat on his face.

Four years ago, the Griffeys decided to adopt a child, as a way to pay forward the gift that had been bestowed upon Melissa Griffey, who was herself adopted. That's how Tevin came to them, at one day old.

"He's such a Griffey," Griffey says. "Every bad trait I have, he's got. He's a bad little dude. And guess what? He's the best athlete of the three."

Asked how he would describe his parenting style, Griffey says: "I like to tell people I'm the Malcolm X of parents. And everyone's like, 'What are you talking about?' And I say, 'By any means necessary to keep them things quiet!' You want this candy? Here! Just keep quiet!"

Brian Goldberg, who has been Griffey's agent from the first day of his professional career -- having served as Griffey Sr.'s agent before that -- says Griffey is "totally at peace" with what he has done in the game, and what he can still do.