Ken Griffey Jr.

Lore & Background

Griffey was born in Donora, Pennsylvania, on November 21, 1969. His family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, as his father, Ken Griffey Sr., made his MLB debut on August 25, 1973 for the Cincinnati Reds. Griffey Jr. was only three years old at the time. He was in the clubhouse during his father's back-to-back championships in the 1975 and 1976 World Series. When Griffey was a young child, his father instilled in him the pride of a team accomplishment rather than the individual performance. An incident during his father's tenure with the New York Yankees, where Griffey Jr. was told to leave the dugout while sitting with his father, while a white player's (Graig Nettles) son was allowed to practice on the field, would lead to Griffey Jr. refusing to contemplate signing with the Yankees during his career. Griffey attended Archbishop Moeller High School in Cincinnati, the same high school as his future teammate Barry Larkin, where he was the U.S. high school baseball player of the year in 1987. He hit .478 with 17 home runs in his two seasons of high school baseball. Griffey also played football as a wide receiver and received scholarship offers to play college football for such programs as Oklahoma and Michigan.

In Their Own Story

The rain begins to fall softly on the turf at Safeco Field, blurring the lights of the stadium into glowing halos. In center field, a figure in green and navy stands ready, the weight of the bat familiar in his hands. The crowd roars, not just for the game, but for the moment itself—the sheer anticipation of seeing 'The Kid' take flight. As the pitch comes in, time seems to slow; the crack of the wood echoes louder than the thunder rolling over Puget Sound. He watches the ball soar into the night sky, a perfect arc against the Seattle gray, before he begins his trademark trot, a smile breaking through the mist.

Reader's Guide

The Seattle Mariners selected Griffey with the first overall selection of the 1987 Major League Baseball draft, held on June 2, 1987. He received a signing bonus of $160,000. On June 11, 1987, Griffey joined the Bellingham Mariners of the Class A short season Northwest League. He made his professional debut on June 16 and hit his first professional home run the following day against the Everett Giants at Everett Memorial Stadium. In 54 games with Bellingham, he hit .313 with 14 home runs, 40 runs batted in (RBI), and 13 steals. In 1988, Griffey joined the San Bernardino Spirit of the High-A California League. During his 58 games, Griffey batted .338, hit 11 home runs, drove in 42 runs, and stole 32 bases. Late in the season, Griffey was promoted to the Vermont Mariners of the Double-A Eastern League. He played the final 17 games with the club, hitting .279 with two home runs and 10 RBI. In his first 11 seasons with Seattle (1989–1999), Griffey established himself as one of the most prolific and exciting players of the era, racking up 1,752 hits, 398 home runs, 1,152 RBI, and 167 stolen bases. He led the American League in home runs for four seasons (1994, 1997, 1998, and 1999), was voted the A.L. MVP in 1997, and batted .297. Griffey's defense in center field was widely considered the standard of elite fielding during the decade, exemplified by his streak of 10 consecutive Gold Gloves from 1990 to 1999. On April 3, 1989, in his first MLB plate appearance, Griffey hit a line-drive double off Oakland Athletics pitcher Dave Stewart at the Oakland Coliseum. One week later in his first at-bat at the Kingdome, Griffey hit his first major league home run. In 1990 and 1991, Griffey and his father became the first son and father to play on the same team at the same time. On September 14, the pair hit back-to-back home runs in the top of the first off California Angels pitcher Kirk McCaskill, becoming the first father-son duo to hit back-to-back home runs. At the MLB Home Run Derby in 1993, held at Oriole Park in Baltimore, Griffey hit the warehouse beyond the right-field wall on the fly and he is still the only player ever to do so. One of the most memorable moments of Griffey's career with the Mariners came during the 1995 American League Division Series (ALDS) against the New York Yankees. In the bottom of the 11th inning of Game 5, with Griffey on first base, team

Did You Know?

• Griffey is one of only 31 players in baseball history to have appeared in major league games in four different calendar decades.
• He is the son of former MLB player Ken Griffey Sr. and the father of former football player Trey Griffey.
• Griffey signed lucrative deals with companies of international prominence like Nike and Nintendo; his popularity is credited by some with helping restore MLB's image after the 1994 labor dispute.
• In 2016, Griffey was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, receiving 99.32% of the vote, breaking pitcher Tom Seaver's record of 98.84%.