Ken Griffey Jr.

George Kenneth Griffey Jr. (born November 21, 1969), nicknamed "Junior" and "the Kid", is an American former professional baseball outfielder who played 22 years in Major League Baseball (MLB).

He spent most of his career with the Seattle Mariners and Cincinnati Reds, along with a short stint with the Chicago White Sox.

Griffey was born in Donora, Pennsylvania, on November 21, 1969.

His family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where his father, Ken Griffey Sr.., played for the Cincinnati Reds, when Ken Jr. was three years old.

Ken Jr. 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, Ken Sr. instilled in him the pride of a team accomplishment rather than the individual performance: "My dad would have bopped me on the head when I was a kid if I came home bragging about what I did on the field. He only wanted to know what the team did."

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 son was allowed to practice on the field, would lead to Griffey Jr. refusing to contemplate signing with the Yankees during his career.

A member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, the first overall pick in the 1987 draft, and a 13-time All-Star, Griffey is one of the most prolific home run hitters in baseball history; his 630 home runs rank as the seventh-most in MLB history.

Griffey was also an exceptional defender and won 10 Gold Glove Awards in center field.

He is tied for the record of most consecutive games with a home run (eight, with Don Mattingly and Dale Long).

He 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.

Griffey 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.

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 from the Mariners.

On June 11, 1987, Griffey joined the Bellingham Mariners of the Northwest League, a Class A Short Season minor league.

He made his professional debut on June 16, 1987.

During the 54-game season he hit .313 with 14 home runs, 40 runs batted in, and 13 steals.

Baseball America magazine named him the league's number one major league prospect.

In 1988, Griffey joined the San Bernardino Spirit of the Class A-Advanced California League.

During his 58 games with the Spirit, 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 Class AA Eastern League.

He played the final 17 games with the club, hitting .279 with two home runs and 10 runs batted in.

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 runs batted in, and 167 stolen bases.

On April 3, 1989, in his very 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.

Griffey's defense in center field was widely considered the standard of elite fielding during the decade, exemplified by his streak of 10 straight Gold Gloves from 1990 to 1999.

His impressive range allowed frequent spectacular diving plays, and he often dazzled fans with over-the-shoulder basket catches and robbed opposing hitters of home runs by leaping up and pulling them back into the field of play.

He was featured on the Wheaties cereal box and had his own signature sneaker line from Nike, Inc.

Griffey was a frequent participant in the All-Star Game during the 1990s.

He led his league multiple times in different hitting categories.

In 1990 and 1991, Griffey and his father became the first son and father to play on the same team at the same time.

Griffey signed lucrative deals with companies of international prominence like Nike and Nintendo; his popularity reflected well upon MLB and is credited by some with helping restore its image after the 1994 labor dispute.

Griffey is one of only 31 players in baseball history to have appeared in major league games in four different calendar decades.

Following his playing career, Griffey joined the Mariners' front office as a special consultant.

He was inducted into both the Mariners Hall of Fame and the Reds Hall of Fame.

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 maintained a .297 career batting average.

In his first major league at-bat, he doubled.

In 2016, Griffey was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, receiving 99.32% of the vote, breaking pitcher Tom Seaver's record of 98.84%, a record that had stood for 24 years.

Griffey is the son of former MLB player Ken Griffey Sr.. and the father of former football player Trey Griffey.