DaytonDailyNews.com

PHILADELPHIA — The afterglow from Ken Griffey Jr.'s Sleepless in Seattle weekend remained on his face Tuesday in the City of Brotherly Love, which isn't about to throw out the same love he absorbed in Seattle.

Griffey was surrounded in the visitors' dugout before Tuesday's Cincinnati Reds game, fielding questions with the same dexterity he used to play defense in Seattle.

Asked what he thought his legacy would be, Griffey said, "That throughout everything he has gone through, he never gave up. He had some bad luck, but he looked at other people and decided it wasn't bad luck."

That led to a question about him wondering what might have been without all his injures, that maybe it would be both him and Barry Bonds chasing Hank Aaron.

"No. No. No, not ever," Griffey said. "You guys predict things and talk about things like that more than I do. I just worry about the guy 60 feet from me. I worry about getting wins and getting us back on track."

Asked if he thought Sammy Sosa reaching 600 home runs was underplayed, Griffey said, "You have one guy going for 755 (Barry Bonds). It was like 1998 when Mark McGwire was chasing 70 and Sosa was chasing 66. I was chasing 56 and I was low man on the totem pole."

Inevitably, talk of a trade surfaced. Little more than a week ago, Griffey said he didn't want to be traded, didn't want to leave Cincinnati. Then over the weekend he told the Seattle media he'd like to retire as a Mariner.

"Trade talks have been around me for 7½ years," he said. "I don't worry about it. I can't control what goes on upstairs (the front office). I can just control how I play. Everything else is out of my hands.

"I have the same desires I had when I was 19, to win a championship, to win a World Series," he added. "So far, it hasn't happened. I'll just keep pushing and hope that dream comes true. I still get to put on a big-league uniform, sometimes not as often as I'd like, but I still get to do it."

Unsteady Eddie

Eddie Guardado is keeping the proverbial stiff upper lip, and the lower one, too, for good measure, but he admits he is a bit nervous about the soreness on top of his elbow.

He was supposed to pitch a simulated game Tuesday, but the soreness popped up after he threw in the bullpen Sunday in Seattle and he was scratched Tuesday.

"A little tightness on top of the elbow, and it's all muscle, which is good," he said with a hopeful smile. "Nervous? Yeah, a little. But it's tightness like you feel after a workout, not really sore. There is a difference."

Guardado hopes to throw in the bullpen today and pitch a simulated game Friday in Cincinnati.

"Dr. (Tim) Kremchek told me I'd run into some bumps and this is one," he

said. "He said only time will heal it and he's right."

Stopping thieves

Teams still try to run on Reds catcher David Ross and they usually run into a baseball waiting for them at second base. He has caught 16-of-31 thieves (52 percent) and was genuinely disappointed when the Reds played Oakland because the Athletics don't run.

"My work is cut out for me this series in Philly," he said. "They have some speedy guys, some quick ones."

Seattle's other side

Reds manager Jerry Narron, witness to Seattle's Lovefest for Griffey, also was witness to the exact opposite when he managed Texas and his shortstop was Alex Rodriguez, who left the Mariners to sign with Texas for $250 million.

"The worst I ever saw a player treated was A-Rod in Seattle," said Narron. "Every home run he hit in batting practice, they threw the ball back. Every foul ball he hit, they threw the ball back."

Quotes of the day

Asked if he had a backup plan when he was younger as to what he might do if he didn't make it in baseball, Griffey said, "Still working on it. I wanted to be an architect and I've designed my last two houses."

Griffey again, when asked about his relationship with pro golfer Tiger Woods: "Tiger is no different than me, other than he is about 10 yards shorter off the tee than me."