After 22 years Ken Griffey Jr. decided to hang up the cleats on Tuesday, retiring from baseball.

Easily one of the greatest players ever to play the game, Griffey is a sure-fire first ballot Hall of Famer.

"I've come to a decision today to retire from Major League Baseball as an active player," Griffey said in a prepared statement. "This has been on my mind recently but it's not an easy decision to come by. I'd like to thank the Seattle Mariners organization for allowing me to finish my playing career where it started."

Griffey had seen his playing time drastically reduced in recent weeks, a factor that appears to have contributed to his decision.

"While I feel I am still able to make a contribution on the field and nobody in the Mariners front office is asking 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 said. "I feel that without enough occasional starts to be sharper coming off the bench, my continued presence as a player would be an unfair distraction to my teammates and their success as a team is what the ultimate goal should be."

I will never forget February 12, 2000. It was day that supposed to go down as one of the greatest days in Reds history. It was on this day the team announced they had traded for Junior. The Kid returned home.

Injuries would prevent him from making the impact the city and franchise longed for and would derail Junior from chasing Hank Aaron’s all-time homerun record.

Still, you can’t deny his place in history and I am grateful to have followed him for the past two decades.

Here’s a look at some of his final stats…

.284 BA, 630 HR (5th all-time), 1,836 RBI

--11 Gold Gloves
--13 All-Star Games
--1 AL MVP

MLB cincinnati reds, ken griffey jr, seattle mariners