With spring training winding down, Cincinnatians are once again gearing up for another Opening Day.  Ken Griffey, Jr. has fully recovered from his hamstring injury and is ready to set the National League on fire.  Young guys like Chris Reitsma and Lance Davis, and comeback "kids" Joey Hamilton and Jose Rijo give us cause for optimism in the pitching department.  Newcomers Adam Dunn and Austin Kearns are ready to make their mark on the big leagues as well.  While everyone is certainly excited and ready for baseball to begin, no one is quite sure what to expect this season, just as many aren't sure what to make of the events of the past few months.  Just like jilted lovers who have nothing better to do than trash talk their ex's, former Reds Pokey Reese, Dmitri Young, and coach Ron Oester have spent the spring badmouthing their former team, and most specifically, their former teammate Griffey, Jr.  Among the charges levied by the three are that Junior is selfish and not a team player, and that the Reds organization has a different set of rules for Junior and future Hall-of-Fame shortstop Barry Larkin.

    I don't know where these guys get off making these comments.  Since the day he signed with Cincinnati, Junior has been nothing but the consummate team player.  Let's not forget the huge pay cut this guy took just to come play here.  He knew that in a market like Cincinnati, there would be no way that the Reds could sign a guy like him at the going rate and still afford to build a winning team.  So while guys like Alex Rodriguez sign 10 year-$250 million dollar contracts elsewhere, he signed a 10 year-$121 million dollar deal here (well below the going rate for an All-Century ballplayer, I can assure you), with much of that salary deferred until well after he retires.  This is hardly the act of a selfish ballplayer.  As far as stretching with the team goes (one of Pokey's biggest complaints was that Junior didn't participate in stretching exercises with the rest of the team), Junior had to do specific, medically supervised stretching exercises in the clubhouse, with team physicians present at all times to assist and evaluate, as a part of his rehab for the torn hamstring, and the rest of the team (including Pokey) knew that.  Exactly who is being selfish here?

    Dmitri Young took the whole issue a step further, saying that it was Griffey and Larkin who demanded that he and Pokey Reese be traded.  This was especially hard for me to hear because next to Jose Rijo, Dmitri was my favorite ballplayer to wear a Reds uniform since the great Pete Rose, and anyone who knows me knows I do not make this statement lightly.  But apparently, Dmitri doesn't remember the countless times that Griffey offered to defer even MORE money from his contract, specifically to keep him and Pokey aboard.  Perhaps he forgot that both he and Pokey were each offered long-term, big-money deals before the start of last season, and that they each turned their respective offers down.  It was obvious that neither wanted to stay in Cincinnati, yet Young blames Larkin and Griffey for getting them traded.  Now, I might have expected this kind of crap from Reese, but I always thought Dmitri Young had far more class than that.  Guess not.  That's very disappointing too because, unlike Reese, I think Young is a special ballplayer who is destined for greatness.  Too bad his selfish attitude has prevented it from happening here. 

    As far as Ron Oester goes, well, Ronnie did get screwed by the Reds.  He should have been the manager going into last season.  I can totally understand why he is upset with the organization, but that is no reason to join the chorus and badmouth Junior.  Ronnie has been around baseball long enough to know that the stars will always get preferential treatment, because they are the stars.  Sparky Anderson did the same thing with the Big Red Machine.  Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Tony Perez would get more leeway than the other guys in the clubhouse, but it was because they did more on the field.  They earned it.  This doesn't only happen in baseball, either.  Someone who works in sales and makes 100 sales of a product in a month is probably going to get away with more than his co-worker who only averages 20 sales a month.  In any business, the performers are going to be rewarded, and there is nothing wrong with that.  It should be incentive for everyone to step up their game, not to whine and cry like a bunch of children.

    The trio also blasted Griffey for his lack of leadership in the clubhouse, comparing his quiet, hands-off approach to Greg Vaughn's in-your-face style of leadership exhibited during the Reds remarkable run in 1999.  Now I'll be the first to admit that I miss Greg Vaughn.  I think he was a very good ballplayer and a tremendous influence in the clubhouse.  But just because Griffey doesn't get in peoples faces doesn't mean he is not a leader.  He leads by example.  For instance, while recovering from a torn hamstring and being advised by the Reds medical staff to shut it down for the season, he still went out and played in 97 out of the final 100 games of the season, and did pretty well (.286 avg. with 22 homers).  That's what a leader does.  Compare that with Pokey Reese sitting out the final month of the season with a shoulder injury not deemed serious by the Reds medical staff, and you wonder how the guy figures he can call someone else a selfish ballplayer.  Sounds like Pokey needs to take a look in the mirror.

    When you look at all this closely, you can see why these guys needed someone like Greg Vaughn constantly up their you-know-what's.  It's also very convenient to have someone else to blame when things don't go your way.  It's easy to see that there definitely were some big problems in the clubhouse last year, but I think it's just as easy to see who and what those problems actually were.  These three obviously had major attitude problems going into last season, which only resulted in these guys bringing everyone else down with them.  They didn't want to be here, and now their gone.  And I say good riddance.  I would take Ken Griffey Jr. on my team any day over any or all three of these bitter malcontents combined.  And I think the Reds will show us this year that they are better for having gotten rid of them.  GO REDS!!!

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