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One week later in his first at-bat at the Kingdome, Griffey hit his first major league home run. 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 of Ken Griffey Jr.'s signature sneakers, the Nike Air Griffey Max. He was featured on the Wheaties cereal box and had his own signature sneaker line from Nike, Inc. 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. His 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 1990–1999.

In his first major league at-bat, he doubled. He led the American League in home runs for four seasons (1994, 1997, 1998, and 1999), was voted the A.L. In his 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. was chasing the single-season home run record set by Roger Maris in 1961. The tick-marks represent his home runs up to the time of the strike, when Griffey Jr. in downtown Seattle from the strike-shortened 1994 season. Baseball America magazine named him the league's number one major league prospect. He led the team with 14 home runs, 40 RBI and 13 steals.

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He made his professional debut on June 16, 1987. On June 11, 1987, Griffey joined the Bellingham Mariners of the Northwest League, a Class A Short Season minor league. He received a signing bonus of $160,000 from the Mariners. Griffey was the number one overall selection by the Seattle Mariners during the Major League Baseball Amateur Draft held on June 2, 1987. Professional career Draft and minor leagues Griffey also played football as a wide receiver and received scholarship offers to play college football for such programs as Oklahoma and Michigan. 478 with 17 home runs in his two seasons of high school baseball. He only wanted to know what the team did.' 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. would instill 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. was in the clubhouse during his father's back-to-back championships in the 19 World Series. His family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where his father, Ken Griffey Sr., played for the Cincinnati Reds, when Ken Jr. Griffey was born in Donora, Pennsylvania, on November 21, 1969.

and the father of former football player Trey Griffey. Griffey is the son of former MLB player Ken Griffey Sr. 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. He was inducted into both the Mariners' Hall of Fame and the Reds Hall of Fame. įollowing his playing career, Griffey joined the Mariners' front office as a special consultant. Griffey is one of only 31 players in baseball history to date to have appeared in major league games in four different calendar decades.

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. He is tied for the record of most consecutive games with a home run (eight, with Don Mattingly and Dale Long). Griffey was also an exceptional defender and won ten Gold Glove Awards in center field. A member of the Baseball Hall of Fame and a thirteen-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. He spent most of his career with the Seattle Mariners and Cincinnati Reds, along with a short stint with the Chicago White Sox. (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).