George Kenneth Griffey Jr. grew up around baseball. His father was a professional baseball player himself, and a wildly successful one at that. Ken Griffey Sr. was an outfielder for the Cincinnati Reds when Ken Griffey Jr. was a kid, and that allowed him to spend a lot of time in Major League clubhouses surrounded by some of the sport's royalty, per SABR.
Ken Griffey Jr. grew up to become a standout ballplayer in high school, and given his famous surname — and first name — he attracted a lot of attention. It's always tough for the child of a legendary athlete to start their own career due to near-constant comparisons to their parents, but Griffey Jr. had a particularly unusual debut when he was drafted by the Seattle Mariners with the first-overall pick in the 1987 MLB June Amateur Draft (via Baseball Reference). Ken Griffey Sr. was still playing in the league, and during his son's second season in 1990, he joined the Seattle Mariners, making the Griffeys the first father and son to play on the same team. On September 14, 1990, they even hit back-to-back home runs, another Major League Baseball first.
After his father retired, Ken Griffey Jr.'s career continued to skyrocket. He received numerous All-Star honors and was named American League MVP in 1997, but by 2000, he was looking for a change of scenery and inked a deal with the same club with which his father spent the bulk of his career: the Cincinnati Reds.
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