Griffey Jr. XXL

Throughout his 21-year Major League career, Ken Griffey Jr. has feasted off a robust buffet of flat cheddar, ripe fastballs and hanging curveballs that dangle like grapes on a vine.

But now, Griffey’s hall-of-fame career is coming under fire this season as the Seattle Mariner designated hitter attempts to slice the 30-home run deficit between him and Willie Mays for fourth on the all-time list.

For much of his career, Griffey has ducked any allegations of using performance-enhancing supplements — perhaps due to his ability to captivate us with a sinuous swing, dimple-face charm and ‘go-get-‘em, slugger!’ mantra.

Conspiracy theorists are now pointing to growing evidence — mostly in the area where his six-pack abs used to be — that Griffey Jr. may not be as pure as once believed.

These critics base their supposition of his recent girth not at Griffey’s love of supper, rather on a theory called the “Barry Bonds Formula,” in which a once scrawny speedster cocoons into a behemoth of a slugger.

You be the judge:

Griffey — who’s packed on 30 pounds since entering the Majors tipping the scales at 200 pounds — declined to address the allegations, but did say that he spent the off-season working out with fitness guru and hitting Yoda, Tony Gwynn.

DOWN...DULCET...DULCET....HIKE

It turns out notorious hip-hop artists Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls aren’t the only ones creating original music long after their untimely deaths.

Citing the track record of the deposed, coastally-proud rappers, the late Walter Payton has decided to get back into the sports-music industry.

The hall-of-fame running back has announced plans to release a re-mastered version of the Super Bowl Shuffle, a tribute to the sporty anthem put out by Sweetness and his Chicago Bears teammates nearly 25 years ago.

Payton admitted that he found motivation to posthumously release the new song after witnessing the success of the still-mortal LaDainian Tomlinson, whose recent music video LT-Slide-Electric Glide has become a Web phenomenon.

Payton, who made a name for himself in the Midwest, hasn’t decided yet whether he’ll collaborate with East Coast’s Smalls or West Coast’s Shakur on the project.

Slimmin' Sammy

Months after a November photo revealed a drastic difference in Sammy Sosa’s now-lighter skin tone, the infamous Chicago Cubs slugger admits his attempts to “desaparezca fuera de vista.”

Translation: disappear out of sight.

A frail Sosa was a mere shell of his former 6-foot, 220-pound Earth-thundering self when he sat down with reporters. Slammin’ Sammy — he of a sixth-best all-time 609 dingers and a U-Haul full of steroid allegations in tow — confessed to recently taking a herbal supplement grown along the shoreline of the Yaque Del Sur river of his native Dominican Republic.

The ground-root herb cocktail Sosa had been ingesting twice weekly was literally causing him to disappear.

A week after the interviews, the only thing left of Sosa was a moderate pile of fine powder.

Sosa’s wife Sonya would not address the speculations that the slugger’s ashes were to be stored either in a syringe or a hollowed-out bat.

SHORT & TO THE POINT

Citing the success of signing C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett last winter, the world-champion New York Yankees announced Monday their off-season intentions of adding to their roster more players who only go by their first initials. Among the dozen qualified players on the Bronx Bombers’ early short list are J.J. Hardy, B.J. Upton, D.J. Carrasco, A.J. Pierzynski and J.A. Happ.

I BELIEVE WE CAN MAKE IT THROUGH THE NIGHT...

The University of Georgia baseball program officially altered its roster today; a week after Bulldog pitcher Dean Weaver legally changed his name.

In 2009, the Douglasville, Ga., native posted the seventh-best single season for saves since “Hustlin’” Hughie Jennings first piloted the Bulldogs in 1895.

The Washington Nationals were impressed by the junior’s poise on the mound and selected him in the seventh round of this summer’s amateur draft. He was one of a school-record 11 Diamond Dogs getting a call from the Big Leagues.

Despite the success, Weaver changed his last name in Douglasville County Court House on Monday, citing psychological trauma suffered on behalf of the Georgia Sports Information Department.

The hurler said hearing Gary Wright’s “Dream Weaver” played over the stadium’s public address system all 74 times he entered a game is what eventually drove him to sign with the worst team in Major League Baseball, rather than return to Georgia for his senior year.

Weaver’s new handle is a baseball homage to Cincinnati Bengal wide receiver Chad Ochocinco, who legally switched his last name from Johnson.

When Dean DosDos reports to Florida this winter to play for the Gulf Coast League Nationals his nombre will match his number.

Dirty Birdie

Much-maligned Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick announced today the release of his autobiography, which details his 23-month imprisonment in Leavenworth Federal Prison on dog-fighting charges. Vick’s 514-page tome “Kibbles & Blitz: The Michael Vick Story” can(‘t) be found on bookstores everywhere.