BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : AFRICAN AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL OUTFIELDER GEORGE KENNETH "KEN" GRIFFEY Jr A MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYER : GOES INTO THE "HALL OF BLACK GENIUS "

                           BLACK              SOCIAL             HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                  George Kenneth "Ken" Griffey, Jr.  born November 21, 1969, nicknamed "Junior" and "The Kid", is an American former professionalbaseball outfielder who played 22 years in Major League Baseball (MLB) for three teams (1989–2010). He spent most of his career with the Seattle Mariners and Cincinnati Reds, along with a short stint with the Chicago White Sox. A 13-time All-Star, Griffey was one of the most prolific home run hitters in baseball history; his 630 home runs rank as the sixth-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 (8 games, tied with Don Mattingly and Dale Long).

Although popular with fans around the league, Griffey was unable to shake reports of petulant demeanor throughout his major league baseball career. Griffey signed lucrative deals with companies of international prominence like Nike and Nintendo (owners of the Mariners); his popularity reflected well upon MLB and is credited by some with helping restore its image after the 1994 labor dispute. He currently works in the Mariners' front office as a special consultant. Griffey is one of only 29 players in baseball history to date to have appeared in Major League games in four different calendar decades. On January 22, 2013, the Mariners announced Griffey would be the seventh person inducted into the team's Hall of Fame. He is the son of former MLB player Ken Griffey, Sr.

Griffey shares his birthday (November 21) and birthplace (Donora, Pennsylvania) with Hall of Famer Stan Musial.His family moved toCincinnati, Ohio, where father Ken Griffey, Sr. played for the Cincinnati Reds, when Jr. was six. Ken was in the clubhouse during his father's back-to-back championships in the 1975 and 1976 World Series. As a young child, Ken Sr. would instill in his son 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."  He attended Archbishop Moeller High School inCincinnati, Ohio, which is also the same high school of former Cincinnati Reds shortstop and Hall of Famer Barry Larkin, where he was the U.S high school baseball player of the year in 1987. He was also a wide receiver on the football team and was pursued by many top Division I college football programs around the country.Early life

Professional career

Seattle Mariners (1989–1999 seasons)

In 1987, Griffey was selected with the first overall pick of that year's amateur draft by the Seattle Mariners. In his eleven 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 RBIs, 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 batting average. In his first major league at-bat, he doubled.

His defense in center field was widely considered the standard of elite fielding during the decade, exemplified by his streak of 10 straightGold 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..

Griffey was a frequent participant in the All-Star Game during the 1990s. He led his league multiple times in different hitting categories.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. 

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. 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. 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 home run landed. 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 the 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", 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. The play also inspired the title of the video game Ken Griffey, Jr.'s Winning Run for the Super Nintendo.

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, 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 both players falling short, Major League Baseball put forth an effort to draw a new set of young fans and regain those disenfranchised by the 1994 strike focused on McGwire and Griffey's pursuit of Maris' record. Griffey, however, fell out of the spotlight due to some nagging injuries and was usurped 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.

In 1999, he ranked 93rd on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players. 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, 1999Players Choice Awards Player of the Decade (by the players), and was named to the All-Century team in 1999.