DaytonDailyNews.com

SEATTLE — "The Kid" left Seattle eight years ago, but Seattle never let him go. As far as Mariners baseball fans are concerned, Ken Griffey Jr. still belongs to them and he is on loan to the Cincinnati Reds.

They proved it Friday in Safeco Field with the biggest love-in since Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s when Griffey returned wearing a Reds uniform but drawing cheers from the Seattle fans as if he still wore the teal and blue No. 24 of the Mariners.

The city is Griffey-GaGa this weekend. The team put together a logo for the series that has a Mariners emblem on which is inscribed, "Griffey Returns, Welcome Back Junior."

All week, the two Seattle newspapers tried to out-Griffey each other with stories, and it reached head-shaking time when a columnist wrote about dogs named "Griffey," complete with photographs of a dachshund, a Dalmatian, a cocker spaniel, a wire-haired fox terrier, an Australian cattle dog and a springer spaniel — all named Griffey.

And the real Griffey was like a lovable puppy standing at a podium during a pregame ceremony, receiving a 10-minute standing ovation as chants of "Ju-nior, Ju-nior, Ju-nior" came from every nook of Safeco.

Clearly, he was overwhelmed.

"I didn't realize how much I missed being in Seattle," he said, appearing in the city for the first time since the trade to Cincinnati in 2000. "Every day I still look in the box score to see what you guys (Mariners) do. I want to thank the fans for supporting us when we were terrible and not giving up on us.

"I owe it all to these guys (1995 teammates Jay Buhner and Edgar Martinez) and I love these guys to death, and without them, who knows where I'd be today."

In the first inning, Griffey walked to the batter's box with Brandon Phillips on base with one out, and the overflow crowd greeted Griffey as theirs. They booed twice when Seattle pitcher Ryan Feierabrand threw over to first base. Then he delivered a pitch, and Griffey pulled it into right field for a single, bringing down the house.

At a pregame press conference attended by more than 100 media, Griffey spoke softly and sincerely, and apologized for acting blasé about the upcoming festivities over the past few days.

"People have written some things the past couple of weeks about me shrugging this off, but you have to understand I had a job to do, wherever I was playing, and not to get too far ahead of myself and think about coming here until I actually got here," he said.

He's here now, and he's king of King County for the weekend.