Griffey Center Of Attention After Over-The-Wall Catch -- Play Makes Up For Plate Struggles In M's Sweep

DETROIT - Such is the majesty and wonder of Ken Griffey Jr. that at a time he is "mentally beat down," according to teammate Jay Buhner, he can still put his indelible stamp on a game.

Griffey is clearly dragging from playing in all 116 of the Mariners' games and is slipping behind in the Great Home Run Chase of 1998. He looked as out of sync at the plate yesterday as any time in recent memory, striking out three times. He has gone nine games and 42 at-bats without a homer, his longest drought of the season, and remains stuck at 41.

And yet, on a day when Alex Rodriguez's three-run homer in the seventh broke a 3-3 tie and lifted Seattle to a 6-3 win that completed a four-game sweep of the Tigers, Griffey stole the day.

His running, leaping, stretching catch of a would-be home run by Luis Gonzalez in the third inning immediately went to the head of Griffey's pantheon of mind-numbing defensive plays.

"You can go ahead and give him an ESPY for that as far as I'm concerned," said Buhner. "That was incredible; awesome."

Gonzalez laced the ball toward the bleachers in right-center off Bill Swift, but Griffey sprinted back, timed his leap perfectly and caught it at the apex of his elevation, his arm stretched far back into the crowd.

Buhner and Griffey high-fived after the play, while left fielder Shane Monahan saluted him from afar.

"That was the single greatest play I've seen in my life," said Monahan. "The catch (Jim) Edmonds made (last season against the Royals, a staple of highlight reels) is not even close."

The consensus in the Mariner clubhouse was that this play leapfrogged past other Griffey masterpieces, such as the over-the-wall catch at Yankee Stadium that robbed current M's batting coach Jesse Barfield of his 200th homer in 1990; the "spiderman" catch in which he scaled the wall to snare a ball hit by Ruben Sierra; and the play in 1994 where he crashed into the wall to rob Baltimore's Kevin Bass and broke his wrist.

"Personally, it's the best catch I've ever seen," Barfield said. "It was much better than the one he made on me because the fence is padded in New York. It's not padded here. You can break your ribs - that fence is hard, man."

According to the closest eye-witness, Buhner, Griffey bore the brunt of the Tiger Stadium wall.

"His chest hit basically up over that wall," Buhner said. "That was straight ribs on metal there. That's giving up your body. I mean, he got up there. He was completely stretched over the deal, his arm was all the way back - he smoked some people in the front row right on the head."

Buhner, who has seen all of Griffey's great plays in his decade as the game's best center fielder, wasn't quite ready to rate this effort No. 1.

"You know, truthfully, I've seen Junior make a lot of great catches," he said. "It's kind of tough to say that's the best one, but . . . it was pretty awesome."

Griffey, typically, downplayed the catch and shooed away reporters who wanted to ask him about it. "I ran and caught it," he said with a shrug, reducing genius to its most elemental form.

Mariner Manager Lou Piniella believes the hoopla surrounding the home-run record might be finally wearing on Griffey. Since hitting two homers against Texas on July 14, he is batting .241 (21 for 87) with only two homers and 11 runs batted in over a span of 22 games, striking out 20 times.

"I think he's a little tired, physically and mentally, from the bombardment," Piniella said. "It gets to him. Enough is enough. It's like a nagging wife - or husband. It doesn't go away. It's happened to (Mark) McGwire, too."

All the Maris candidates, in fact, have hit a wall. McGwire has one homer in his last 10 games, and his home-run pace, once in the 70s, is now down to 64. Griffey's pace is down to 57, while Sosa's dropped from 61 to 60 with a homerless game yesterday.

Interestingly, the trio's struggles parallel those of their predecessors. At this time in 1927, Babe Ruth had hit two homers in 15 games. He broke out with 24 homers in his next 41 games to finish with 60.

In August 1961, Maris was in a drought of one homer in 16 games, but he hit seven in six games en route to finishing with a record-setting 61.

"I tell you what, I wouldn't want to be in that situation, where it's an everyday thing," Piniella said. "Every time you go into a different town, people want to talk about it, and different people are coming in when we're at home. It's a tiring situation, and it doesn't go away."

And yet Griffey doesn't want to come out of the lineup for a breather. He was the designated hitter in Piniella's original lineup yesterday but was inserted at center when Edgar Martinez's soreness from two straight days at first base restricted him to designated hitter.

"This season is a roller-coaster ride, man," Buhner said. "There are peaks and valleys, and the good hitters find a way to get themselves out quicker than everyone else.

"Junior is just kind of mentally beat down right now, but he doesn't want to come out of the lineup. He doesn't want a day off. He's just going to play himself through it until he catches his second - heck, at this point, it's his third wind now."