Professional career[edit]
Minor League Baseball (1987–1988)[edit]
Griffey was the number one overall selection by the Seattle Mariners during the Major League Baseball Amateur 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. He led the team with 14 home runs, 40 RBI and 13 steals. Baseball America magazine named him the league's number one major league prospect.[14]
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.[15] 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 RBIs.[16]
Seattle Mariners (1989–1999)[edit]
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. 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.[17]
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. 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.
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.[18] One week later in his first at-bat at the Kingdome, Griffey hit his first major league home run.[19]
Griffey was a frequent participant in the All-Star Game during the 1990s. He led his league multiple times in different hitting categories.[20]
In 1990 and 1991, Griffey and his father became the first son and father to play on the same team at the same time. In his father's first game as a Mariner, on August 31, 1990, the pair hit back-to-back singles in the first inning and both scored.[21] 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.[22] The duo played a total of 51 games together before Griffey Sr. retired in June 1991.
At the MLB Home Run Derby in 1993, which was 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. As with every home run that hits Eutaw Street, each feat is honored with a circular plaque, embedded horizontally onto the concourse's walkway, in the exact spot where the ball landed.[23][24] In 1994, he led the league in voting for All-Star Game selection. That season, which ended prematurely on August 12 due to the labor dispute, saw Griffey hit 30 home runs in the Mariners' first 65 games. He would go on to have 4 multi-home run games that year. While his pace cooled somewhat in the final eight weeks of the season (he only hit 10 home runs in the Mariners' last 47 games), his 40 home runs by August 12 still put him two ahead of Chicago's Frank Thomas and four ahead of Cleveland's Albert Belle for the AL lead.
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. After losing the first two games, the Mariners and Griffey were on the verge of elimination, but came back to win the next two games, setting up a decisive fifth game. In the bottom of the 11th inning of Game 5, with Griffey on first base, teammate Edgar Martínez hit a double. Griffey raced around the bases, slid into home with the winning run, and popped up into the waiting arms of the entire team. The 1995 AL Division Series would kick off a brief rivalry between the Yankees and Mariners. Griffey may have escalated it by saying that he would never play for the Yankees, because the Yankees allegedly treated his father, Ken Griffey Sr. badly. Also, when Griffey was a kid visiting his dad in the Yankee clubhouse, Yankee manager Billy Martin would, believing that children did not belong in the clubhouse, kick him out of there. Although the Mariners subsequently lost the ALCS to the Cleveland Indians (managed by later Mariners manager Mike Hargrove), that moment remains one of the most memorable in Mariners history, capping a season that "saved baseball in Seattle",[25][26] Seattle's improbable late-season playoff run that year, spurred by the return of Griffey from injury, led to the construction of Safeco Field and the future security of a franchise rumored for years to be on the move.[27] The play also inspired the title of the video game Ken Griffey Jr.'s Winning Run for the Super NES.
In 1997, Griffey led the Mariners to the AL West crown and captured the American League Most Valuable Player Award, hitting .304, with 56 home runs and 147 RBIs. The next season, 1998, was a season which was followed closely by the national media as both Griffey and Mark McGwire entered the summer ahead of the pace of Roger Maris' home run record of 61. Despite Griffey falling short, Major League Baseball put forth an effort to draw a new set of young fans and regain those disenchanted by the 1994 strike focused on McGwire, Sosa, and Griffey's pursuit of Maris' record. Griffey, however, fell out of the spotlight due to some nagging injuries and was surpassed by Chicago Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa, who finished with 66 home runs, himself falling short of McGwire's then record 70. Despite falling out of the record chase, Griffey nearly duplicated his 1997 statistics, finishing with 56 home runs and 146 RBI.
On April 15, 1997, Griffey wore the number 42, which led to an MLB tradition started in 1999 known as Jackie Robinson Day.[28]
In 1999, he ranked 93rd on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players.[29] This list was compiled during the 1998 season, counting only statistics through 1997. At age 29 (going on 30), he was the youngest player on the list. That same year, Griffey was elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. However, when TSN updated their list for a new book in 2005, despite having surpassed 400 and 500 home runs, Griffey remained at Number 93.
While playing with Seattle, Griffey was a 10-time American League Gold Glove winner, the 1992 All-Star Game MVP, 1997 AL MVP, 1998 ESPY co-winner for Male Athlete of the Year, 1999 Players Choice Awards Player of the Decade (by the players), and was named to the All-Century team in 1999.[30]
Departure from Seattle (1999–2000)[edit]
Griffey formerly lived in the same neighborhood in Orlando as golfer Payne Stewart. After Stewart's death in a plane crash on October 25, 1999, Griffey started expressing a desire to live closer to his relatives in his hometown of Cincinnati. Not only did Griffey want to live closer, but he wanted to be able to raise his kids, Trey and Taryn (Tevin was not born at the time). On February 10, 2000, Griffey was traded to the Reds for pitcher Brett Tomko, outfielder Mike Cameron, and minor leaguers Antonio Perez and Jake Meyer. Griffey signed a nine-year, $112.5M contract with the Reds after the trade was completed, with a club option for a tenth.[31]
Earlier that offseason, Griffey had vetoed a trade to the New York Mets for Roger Cedeño, Octavio Dotel and a relief pitcher variously reported as Dennis Cook or Armando Benítez.[32][33] Griffey's agent, Brian Goldberg, said afterward that Griffey would only accept a trade to the Reds and, "[i]f he can't go to Cincinnati, then he's going back to Seattle for the final year of his contract."[32]