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Maybe. But you can't hit home runs if you're not pitched to, and managers--to an extent not seen since 1923 when they finally devised a strategy to contain Babe Ruth--are walking McGwire on purpose. At 100 walks so far this year, he may break Ruth's record of 170 for a season. On several occasions McGwire has even been intentionally walked in the ninth inning, in a close game, with a man on first. "If you just make it a point to take the bat out of his hands the whole series, I don't think that's respecting the game," a clearly frustrated LaRussa says.
But it's not helping. Los Angeles Dodgers general manager Tommy Lasorda is amazed that "pitchers keep throwing Mark McGwire fastballs. If I were pitching, the only fastballs he'd see would be between innings when I was warming up." San Francisco Giants pitching coach Ron Perranoski says his strategy toward McGwire is simply to "pitch around him." He adds, "You have to be double-perfect when you pitch to him. There are a lot of people who are tough outs, but you make a mistake with McGwire and he hits it 1,000 miles."
Here is where Griffey, though he doesn't hit home runs as often or as big as McGwire, has a huge advantage. When Maris broke the record, he had Mickey Mantle batting behind him to discourage walks. All McGwire has for protection is the solid but injury-prone Brian Jordan. Griffey has a bodyguard unit bigger than Jerry Springer's: last year the Mariners set the record for home runs by a team. Plus, Griffey is a lefty, which helps him see the pitch when facing righthanded pitchers, who dominate the National League.
Thanks to the McGwire show, the incandescent Griffey, long the most popular player in baseball, has been subjected to somewhat less pressure from fans and the media. What pressure he gets, he seems to handle better, knowing how to bend. After it became known that he'd declined to take part in the home-run derby before the All-Star game (he was afraid it would mess with his swing), the fans booed him during batting practice. So he quickly signed on and won the thing, besting even Mark McGwire. Having decreed that he won't talk about hitting home runs for the rest of the season, before a game last week Griffey made like Mike McCurry and treated a klatch of reporters to an hour-long display of amiable evasion and spin. Is it possible that Griffey, in some perverse way, actually enjoys this? "Are you kidding?" says teammate Jay Buhner, a close friend. "Look at him. Of course he enjoys it."
Griffey has been in the spotlight since he was Little Kenny, when his father, outfielder Ken Griffey Sr., used the Cincinnati Reds locker room as a day-care center. Then, at 19, Junior joined the Mariners, where for two seasons he would play alongside his father in the outfield and behind him in the batting order, where they became the only father-son team to hit back-to-back homers. By then Junior had eclipsed his All-Star father, proving that if Oedipus had just played baseball, Freud wouldn't have had a career.