I know I’m supposed to refer to him as Ken Griffey since his dad is retired, but he’ll always be a junior to me. Well, just Junior. Or “The Kid.” Whatever. He takes his first cuts as a Mariner once again  against Australia's World Baseball Classic on Wednesday and I can’t wait.

If I’m being totally honest here, Griffey has to be the first real sports “crush” I ever had. Growing up on both coasts thanks to having a dad in the Navy, I didn’t truly become enamored with San Diego sports as a preschooler. The pre-Tony Gwynn Padres has Sixto Lezcano and not much else for me, and shamefully I didn’t grow to appreciate football until much later, thereby missing Air Coryell and Dan Fouts’ ridiculous arm.

We moved to the Washington, D.C. area so I have to adapt. I grew to really like Cal Ripken, Jr. when the Baltimore Orioles were pretty good, and the Redskins had great years in which I grew fond of John Riggins and Joe Theisman.

But when we moved to Washington state, and I found that the Kingdome was just a ferry ride from my Bainbridge home, then, when we moved again, from my Bremerton home, I grew to love the lovable losers in blue. Harold Reynolds, Mark Langston, Jim Presley, Phil and Scott Bradley, those were my guys.

Me and my buddies used to snag a $2 ferry ride for a summer day game, buy outfield seats for $3.50 and then sneak over the metal-piping barriers out on the Kingdome concourses to get into the (more expensive) infield seating areas, then work our way down into the $20 seats. If we couldn’t get autographs during batting practice and those wonderfully lazy two-hour stretching sessions before opening ceremonies, we’d wait near the parking lot behind old, wooden barriers as players headed to their cars. They’d stop and give us some ink on those less-than-valuable trading cards. I still have my Mike Brumley, Ken Phelps and Mickey Brantley signatures, thank you.

But Griffey changed all that. Oh sure, the evolution of Jay Buhner, Edgar and Tino Martinez, Randy Johnson and Dan Wilson sure sped all that up, but it was Griffey that made the Mariners my team. Our team. Big smile, picture-perfect swing, playing like it was a kid’s game, he was the greatest. Every ball hit into the outfield seemed like another chance for something spectacular: Griffey leaps over the wall to take away a home run! Griffey runs up the wall like Spider Man and steals another! Griffey catches a fly ball while negotiating peace in the Middle East!

And then he left. Broken hearts across the Puget Sound. Resentment and regret. What ifs. Why now? Why Cincinnati? Why not here? Griffey led a chorus line of superstars to leave — Randy, then A-Rod, then Buhner retires — and though the M’s had a great stretch run there in 2001 and 2002, it wasn’t the same. Sure, Ichiro’s smile and what-the-heck-did-he-just-do everyday plays made us all turn our heads, but he’s like an alien: wonderful to watch but not easy to relate to.

I’m not the only one to get a little teary-eyed considering Griffey’s return as a Cincinnati Red in 2007. He said he’d love to come home again. He said he loves Seattle. He said he’d like to retire here … maybe. We all gasped. Could this storybook ending be real?

And then he signed. Stolen away from Atlanta’s grasp by reason, the prayers of Seattle baseball fans who somehow moved baseball god Willie Mays and Hank Aaron to cajole The Kid back home, where he belongs.

I know there are plenty in the blogosphere and beyond that think this is a stupid move for a Mariners team building for the future. Maybe they weren’t here when Junior was scaling the walls and turning home runs into outs, when he was parking fastballs deep in the third tier of the Kingdome, when he was lighting up pitchers his swing and fans with his boisterous, childlike fervor. Maybe they feel burned by him forcing the M’s into a trade.

Maybe they think he won’t help the team.

Oh, he will. More fans in the ballpark means more cheers. A veteran who’s actually seen the playoffs (and playoff victories) can only help establish a veteran presence. A star who has played the game the right way — not like the steroid-popping sluggers of recent memory — shows younger players what it means to keep perspective and what baseball, on its good days, still is: a game.

And there’s history to consider. Junior still has a few milestones to meet. Although he’s likely a couple of season away, he still has 3,000 hits and 2,000 RBIs in his sights. He can do it. And the Mariners, despite 101 losses in 2008, are a team that still looks pretty good this spring. Griffey seems like the kind of guy who can only make a team batter, maybe even a winner.

Junior can do it. After, he can do anything, can’t he?

Reach Gazette sports editor Michael Dashiell at miked@sequimgazette.com.