In 1987, Ken Griffey Jr. was selected by the Seattle Mariners with the No. 1 overall pick. Now, 29 years later, Griffey has been voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame's Class of 2016, becoming the first No. 1 pick to make it to Cooperstown. With 437 votes of the 440 ballots cast by the Baseball Writers' Association of America, Junior also set a new mark for the highest percentage of votes with 99.3, surpassing Tom Seaver of 98.84 who set the mark in 1992.
When he hung up his glove for good, The Kid left behind an incredible resume, which included 13 All-Star selections, 10 Gold Glove awards, seven Silver Slugger awards and a 1997 American League MVP award. With accomplishments and accolades like those, Griffey was going to get the call one day. Today was that day.
When Mike Piazza was taken by the Los Angeles Dodgers with the 1,390th pick in the 62nd round, it was merely done as a favor from manager Tommy Lasorda to his good friend, Piazza's father, Vince. As it turned out, Vince was doing Lasorda a favor. In his first season donning the Dodger Blue, Piazza batted .318 with 35 homers and 112 RBIs and was named the National League Rookie of the Year.
After an incredibly short stint with the Florida Marlins, Piazza was shipped to the New York Mets and his legend grew even bigger. In addition to helping send the team to their first World Series in 16 years, Piazza's go-ahead eight inning home run against the Atlanta Braves, just 10 days after the September 11th attacks, will forever be embedded in the brains of Mets fans and New Yorkers forever.
It doesn't matter where you start, all that matters is how you finish. Today, Piazza found out that he finished his MLB career in Cooperstown.
Send all complaints, compliments, and tips to sportstips@complex.com
[via MLB]
