Baseball Legend Ken Griffey Jr, retires in 5th place career homerun list

After 22 years in the Majors, Ken Griffey Jr announced his retirement Wednesday night, leaving him in 5th place on the all-time homeruns list with 630.

"While I feel I am still able to make a contribution on the field and nobody in the Mariners front office has asked me to retire, I told the Mariners when I met with them prior to the 2009 season and was invited back that I will never allow myself to become a distraction.”

Griffey Jr's retirement marks the first time in 37 years that a Griffey family member is not playing in the Majors. His father, Ken Griffey Sr, started playing in 1973, with the Cincinnati Reds, an organization that Griffey Jr also played for at one point. In 1990, the two Griffey's made history as the first ever father-son tandem to play for the same Major League team, the Seattle Mariners. They hit back-to-back homeruns on September 14th, 1990.

Griffey Jr played with the Seattle Mariners from 1989-1999 and was largely considered the best baseball player in the country during the '90s. During that time, he was selected to 11-straight all-star teams (1990-2000), won 10 straight Gold Glove awards for his incredible defense (1990-1999), was a 3x Homerun Derby champion (1994, 1998, 1999), and was MLB's MVP in 1997. Griffey Jr is also a member of the MLB All-Century Team.

Griffey will undoubtedly be a first ballot Hall of Famer in 2015.