From Pittsburgh steel country to Riverfront Stadium
Ken Griffey Sr. was born in Donora in April 1950 and was the Cincinnati Reds’ 29th-round pick in the 1969 MLB Draft. He was already in the Reds’ minor-league system when Junior was born in November 1969. The Griffeys lived in Donora for the first three years of Junior’s life while Sr. moved through the Cincinnati farm system. When Sr. reached the major leagues full-time in 1973, the family moved to Cincinnati.
Junior grew up in the Reds’ Big Red Machine clubhouse — a kid running around Riverfront Stadium with Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Tony Pérez, and Johnny Bench around him. Sr. won two World Series rings with the 1975 and 1976 Reds. Junior was 6 and 7 years old. The family kept its primary residence in Cincinnati from 1973 to 1981 even after Sr. was traded to the Yankees.
Archbishop Moeller and the 1987 MLB Draft
Junior attended Archbishop Moeller High School in Cincinnati from 1983 to 1987. The school was a national football powerhouse — Moeller produced Barry Larkin (born 1964), Adam Hyzdu (1973), and Pat Schiavone, among other major-league players. Griffey was a three-sport star (baseball, football, basketball) but it was clear by his junior year that baseball was the future.
He was named USA Today’s National High School Baseball Player of the Year as a senior in 1987. The Seattle Mariners had the #1 overall pick in the 1987 MLB Draft. Junior was 17 years old when he signed for $160,000 — the second-highest signing bonus of the 1987 draft class behind Mark Merchant. The Mariners assigned him to their rookie-league affiliate; he reached MLB at age 19 in 1989.
The Donora-Cincinnati legacy
Donora, Pennsylvania has a population of about 4,500 today. It produced two MLB Hall of Famers from the same neighborhood: Stan Musial (born November 21, 1920 — exactly 49 years before Junior, on the same day) and Ken Griffey Jr. The Donora Heritage Museum has a Stan Musial / Ken Griffey Jr. wing that documents the unusual coincidence and the town’s three-generation Griffey legacy.
Griffey returned to Cincinnati in 2000 — when the Mariners traded him to the Reds for four players in February 2000. He played 9 seasons in his hometown, including the 500th career home run, the 600th career home run, and his last season (2008) at age 38. Cincinnati retired his #30 jersey in 2010, the year of his retirement. The Reds also retired his father’s #30 (Sr.’s number from 1973-81 with Cincinnati) in 2009 — the only father-son retired-number pair in Reds history.
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Babe Ruth Childhood: Pigtown to St. Mary's Derek Jeter Hometown: Growing Up in Kalamazoo Where Connor McDavid Grew Up: Newmarket, Ontario Where Hank Aaron Grew Up: Mobile, AlabamaBackground facts cross-referenced with the Wikipedia article on Ken Griffey Jr. and Pro-Football-Reference / Basketball-Reference public records.