Sports
'The Kid:' Ken Griffey, Jr., elected to the
Baseball Hall of Fame
Superstitious and modest, Ken Griffey, Jr., has spent his life refusing to set foot in the National Baseball Hall of Fame Museum.
Now, the player simply called "The Kid," has no choice. He was elected into the Hall of Fame, receiving the highest voting percentage in history at 99.3 percent. According to USA Today Sports, he received 437 of the 440 votes cast by members of the Baseball Writers Association of America.
Members of the media thought he should have all 440 votes. Griffey said, "It's truly an honor to be elected, and to have the highest percentage was definitely a shock."
His answer shows the type of graciousness displayed throughout his career, which spanned 1989 to 2010.
He was a 13-time All-Star and a 10-time Gold Glove winner who hit 630 home runs, but the only player with more than 500 homers during his era who never drew any suspicion that he used performance-enhancing drugs. He missed 1,500 plate appearances because of injures from 2001 to 2006.
Griffey was content to be the player known simply as The Kid, the ace of baseball for two decades who wore his baseball cap backward with a smile.
