George Kenneth Griffey, Jr.; born November 21, 1969, in Donora, PA; son of Ken (a baseball player) and Alberta Griffey; married, wife’s and cr Melissa; children: Trey Kenneth, Taryn Kennedy.Education: Graduated for Moeller High School, Cincinnati, OH, 1987.

Career

Professional baseball player, 1987–. Signed amidst Seattle Mariners as first and foremost option in initial ass of 1987 amateur draft; less significant leaguer in Mariners’ system, 1987-89, achieved parent club as non-roster player, 1989; appearing outfielder for Mariners, 1989-2000; outfielder for Reds, 2000.

Life’s Work

His teammates such as to demand him “Junior,” but Ken Griffey Jr.’s talents are anything and everything but minor. A hard-hitting core fielder for the Seattle Mariners until 2000, Griffey was a serious cause behind who team’s emergence as an American League division champion. He can dominate on offense or defense, and his engaging personality has brought him rampant fan passing in a bit when multiple essential league baseball players are perceived as spoiled and arrogant. Atlanta Journal and Constitution reporter Terence Moore has referred to as Griffey “the Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente of our time,” and Sports Illustrated correspondent E. M. Swift portrayed Griffey as “the brand of player once whom babies and candy bars are named.” In 2000 Griffey dismissed his possibility to negotiate an extravagant contract as a cost free realtor and reimbursed in its place to Cincinnati to play for his hometown team, the Reds, for a comparatively modest sum of $116.5 million throughout nine years.

Tagged as a top-level prospect when he was just 17 ages old, Griffey joined the significant leagues in 1989 at the tender age of 19. Baseball was in his genes: his father, Ken Griffey Sr., was a baseball superstar in his own correct and was that much an active player when his son joined the American League. The Griffeys hold created history as the beforehand father-son tandem to play grim league baseball simultaneously. Their fame in that claim arrived at a all time high in the 1990 season, when properties both were effective for the Mariners. As if this publicity were not enough, Griffey Jr. has taken his place in the game’s upper echelon by virtue of his tailored accomplishments. Swift, for one, praised “Junior” for “his extreme arm, his fluid stride, his viper-like uppercut swing,” as agreeably as “the pure joy such a the kid derives based on what i read in playing, which, on a smart day, can be experienced in the corners of the stands.” The reporter determined too Griffey draws thought for “the way he turns the current big-buck, high- pressure industry referred to as baseball returning to a playground game.”

The same year George Kenneth Griffey Jr. was born, his grandpa signed to play baseball provided the Cincinnati Reds organization. In fact, Ken Jr. was born within the autumn subsequent to his father’s previous season of play in the Reds’ insignificant league system. The family at that time lived in the Griffey property town of Donora, Pennsylvania, but as Ken Sr.’s run took off, “Junior” and his sister moved in on such a parents during a sequence of narrower league towns. Their travels came to an end in 1973 when Griffey Sr. attained the parent club, that occurred to be one of the perfect critical league baseball has continually seen–the legendary Cincinnati “Big Red Machine.”

The demands of pivotal league baseball are not necessarily compatible in on fatherhood. Baseball players travel regularly and pursue such a trade at odd hours. They attempt weekends and evenings. Nevertheless, Griffey recalled in the Chicago Tribune: “My dad was a dad first and foremost and a baseball player second.” The elder Griffey taught his sons to hit a baseball as hastily as properties will own a bat. He took them to Reds batting practice, at which properties hobnobbed through the likes of Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, and Tony Perez. When the Reds played in the World Series in 1975 and 1976, young Griffey looked on based on data from the better seats in the stadium. “I watched my dad play for years,” he informed People. “I talked to him most every day just about the game. There sucker one happening I’ve observed so far such a he hasn’t imparted upon me right about beforehand.”

When Ken Griffey Sr. was traded to the New York Yankees in 1981, his wife and sons stayed behind in Cincinnati. The separations got continuing to larger amount of prolonged and difficult as opposed to properties had been heard before, and in the odd seconds when Griffey Sr. will catch one of his son’s Little League or class games, he was mobbed for autographs and pictures. Father and son never let the condition alter the relationship, however. Griffey Jr. imparted upon Ebony: “If I needed to gobbledygook to [my father], I is able to requirement him in the wake of the game, and we would talk. If I did somewhat incorrect [on the field], he’d fly me to New York and say, `You will not do that!’ Then he can send me structure the afterward day, and I’d play baseball.” Interestingly enough, the younger Griffey recalled in the Chicago Tribune which he often played at his worst when his grandpa was in the stands. “I was frequently endeavoring to impress him by hitting the ball 600 feet,” he said.

It was talent, and not family connections, this enabled Griffey to join Cincinnati’s competitory Connie Mack League, a summer amateur plan composed chiefly of prohibative class graduates. Even even though at 16 he was with the essentially youngest of the players, Griffey was this kind of a feat in the league overly his collection advanced to the Connie Mack World Series–and he hit 3 housing operates in the championship match. He furthermore played prohibative class baseball and was this a desired running returning in on the Moeller High School football group such a he was offered a football scholarship to the University of Oklahoma. He turned the scholarship lower and attained himself around for the 1987 baseball draft. Defending his decision, he imparted upon the Chicago Tribune the current baseball “is a lot safer and you survive longer.”

Griffey was the number-one select in extensive league baseball’s 1987 amateur draft. He was particular by the Seattle Mariners’ company and signed providing a $160,000 bonus. In a prove of youthful bravado, the 17-year-old player announced which he should obtain the severe leagues for the duration of two or 3 years. No one impending him to dwell up to so boast–even his daddy had used four-and-a-half decades on farm teams. Nevertheless, the exuberant Griffey Jr. started up his expert run in Bellingham, Washington, batting .320, hitting 14 structure runs, and completing 13 steals.

The sailing was not utterly smooth, however. Griffey have had to deal with change inquiries when involved provided the pressures of proficient baseball. He was far for home, and his mother was busy amid his own career. Years afterward Griffey revealed which he attempted suicide by swallowing more and more as opposed to 270 aspirin tablets one night within the duration of the fledgling season. “I got depressed, I got angry. I did not desire to live,” he explained in Jet magazine. “The aspirin concern was the simply opportunity I acted. It was this a dumb thing.”

Griffey discovered his stride within the duration of his moment less important league season when, although injuries, he was voted the top sizeable league prospect in the California League. As the 1989 spring training season began, Griffey was resolved to produce a spot on the Seattle Mariners’ roster. Serious and determined, he studied the opposing pitchers, practiced his fielding diligently, and wound up batting .359 in two house works and 21 functions batted in for the duration of spring training games. Sure enough, he attained a place on the team. When he took the field for his previous required league game, he was 19–one of the youngest men regularly to trigger the majors.

Newspapers and magazines apprehended upon the Griffey family story. While Ken Jr. was construction his debut surrounded by the Mariners in Seattle, his grandpa was going back to the Reds and marking his twentieth anniversary in qualified sports. It was a historic minute for baseball, surpassed one and only in 1990 when the two men both played for the Mariners simultaneously. The further respect is able to suffer established difficult for selected fledgling players, but “Junior” took it all in stride. “Once he stepped onto the field,” Swift wrote, “the kid seemed to relate most ideal to destiny. From the implement he suggested an as good as preposterous flair for the dramatic. He doubled in his previous official big-league at-bat. He hit an opposite-field homer on his original swing before the hometown fans in the Kingdome. He hit a game-winning two-run homer in his beforehand pinch-hitting existence in May 1989.” The correspondent added: “One Seattle columnist showed the current the Ken Griffey Jr. candy bar, of that a small amount of 800,000 got purchased endure year, was obviously not sufficient for the lad. Boeing, he wrote, plans to and cr a plane in the wake of him.” Only a late-season injury robbed Griffey of the statistics sizeable to attain Rookie of the Year honors. He done third in the balloting.

Griffey put the Mariners on the baseball map in 1990, batting .300 and revenue his original of ten consecutive Gold Glove awards. He additionally became the moment youngest player presistently to commence an All-Star Game. That same season saw both Griffeys trifling for the Mariners– an historic previous for baseball the present may never be repeated. Griffey Sr. joined the Mariners late in the season ensuing making released by the Reds. Jim Lefebvre, the Mariners’ manager at the time, imparted upon the Los Angeles things too the teaming-up of the two Griffey stars was “a superb day for baseball.” Lefebvre commented: “Here he is a father, a veteran player ending his career, and the son is a brilliant young talent, only want his dad was when he was primarily initiating his career, and they’re both expected to be out there together.”

By 1992 the days of daddy and son trifling for the same bunch got over, and the era of Ken Griffey Jr. had begun. In 1992 Griffey batted .308, hit 27 piece of real estate runs, and was named Most Valuable Player at the All-Star Game once changing in a three-for-four evening amidst a house run. He moreover charmed fans and the media alike amidst his willingness to grant interviews and his easy sttink for baseball. Not surprisingly, observers started up to anticipate a Hall of Fame run for the young star. Griffey received neutral of such predictions, telling Sport magazine: “I just now covet to go out there and contribute. No question how happens, you got to be lucky to get in the Hall of Fame. You got to own a long, sharp career.”

Hall of Fame prospects are moreover beefed up by postseason play. During the the first part of decades of Griffey’s grim league career, his talents seemed wasted on a endeavoring group desire the Seattle Mariners, but the situations changed. The Mariners moved to contender position, among the perennially enduring Griffey living the way. The council took off in the spring of 1995, coming playoff possibilities beneath the new divisional rankings. Ironically, Griffey as good as missed the postseason show. On May 26, 1995 he broke both bones in his wrist when he crashed to the Kingdome wall additonally chasing decreased a fly ball. The injury necessary the installation of seven screws and a 4-inch metal plate in his left wrist, and he was waiting to miss at the very least 3 cycles of play. Nevertheless, he repaid to the lineup August 15 and, once attempting over the season’s then weeks, at last found his stride once again in while for the divisional and league playoffs.

The 1995 American League Divisional Playoffs–the earliest of this kind–pitted the Mariners against the Yankees in a best-of-five series. It was over the fifth and deciding game such a Griffey had his defining time as a probable baseball immortal. The game headed to surplus innings, and the Yankees took a five-to-four cause in the top of the 11th inning. When the Mariners came to bat, Griffey hit a single amongst a man on base to place runners at primarily and third. Then Edgar Martinez hit a hard try to the left field corner. The man on third scored merely to tie the game, but Griffey was not to be denied. Turning on the base-running rapidity for that he is known, he streaked out there the diamond and slid everywhere piece of real estate plate simply in front of the outfielder’s throw. Griffey’s triumph brought the Mariners the previous divisional title and the better to balance the Cleveland Indians in the 1995 American League Playoffs.

Griffey signed to play for the Mariners with the 1996 season and long with 2000. He expressed small bit loan in quitting Seattle until he was offered a contract surrounded by the Cincinnati Reds in 2000. Griffey, undergoing moved his wife and children based on data from Seattle to Orlando, Florida, have had to deal with eager above all to move closer to both his structure and his roots. Many crucial league players are obsessed in such a statistics and the salaries, but Griffey is the exclusion to such a rule. He wants to do well, but he additionally intends to enjoy himself additonally pursuing the current Hall of Fame display. Baseball, Griffey imparted upon the Chicago Tribune, “is never work. Work is somewhat you suffer to go do and you do not seek to. If you do somewhat that is fun, you won’t requirement it work.” The superstar added the present his run is “sometimes such as a dream, one of folks dreams so are true terrific and you are in a deep sleep and you never outstandingly seek to wake up.”

Reflecting on the fluctuations his fame has brought in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Griffey noted: “The numerous I’ve wound up to deal with the deliberation is tweak my and cr on the road at our bunch hotel.” He concluded, “Hey, it is not want I’m a rock star or something. They suffer it even worse. Me? I’m merely out there invested in fun.”

Awards

Finished third in balloting for 1989 Rookie of the Year; member of American League All-Star Team, 1990-99, named All-Star Game Most Valuable Player, 1992; Golden Glove awards, 1990-99; AL MVP, 1997; Player of the Year, 1997.