Ken Griffey Jr.: This Era's Real Homerun King

Every era of baseball has its players that are the top baseball players of the era, the superstars, the guys that will go down in history as the greatest. Unfortunately during this era that is known by some as the "steroid era" many of our greats have fallen.

Barry Bonds was possibly the best player in baseball but he has now been indicted. Sammy Sosa was once held pretty high but his use of a corked bat made us realize he might not be such a great guy after all. Mark McGwire has refused to answer questions about steroids making him look very suspicious.

As all these guys fall left and right there is still one man who stands tall: Ken Griffey Jr.

Once upon a time Ken Griffey Jr. was arguably the best player in baseball and most popular player in baseball but as McGwire and Sosa began their homerun chase and Griffey started having injury problems, Griffey started to fade.

But let's not forget just how incredible a player Ken Griffey Jr. has been. From 1990 to 2000 Ken Griffey Jr. was as good as they came. Ken Griffey Jr. had more than 100 RBI on 8 occasions in the 90's, including three seasons over 140. Ken Griffey Jr. scored more than 100 runs on 6 occasions and batted over .300 seven times. Ken Griffey Jr. also slugged 50 homeruns twice and more than 40 five other seasons.

Ken Griffey Jr. went to the All-Star game 11 years in a row from 1990 to 2000 and went two more times in 2004 and 2007. He also received votes in the MVP Voting nine times between 1990 and 2000, including winning the MVP in 1997 and finishing in the top 5 four other times.

Before the injury Ken Griffey Jr. was on his way to being the most decorated defensive outfielder too. At the age of 29 Ken Griffey Jr. already had 10 Gold Glove Awards. The record for most Gold Glove Awards in the outfield is 12 and one has to think if Griffey stayed healthy he probably breaks that record.

Ken Griffey Jr. is 49th all time in runs, 20th all time in RBI and 6th all time in homeruns despite missing 436 games between 2001 and 2007. If Griffey was healthy all those years he'd also likely be past 3,000 hits by now.