Ken Griffey Jr. was the closest thing baseball had to Michael Jordan, and while his Swingman line will never surpass the Air Jordan line in terms of sales and popularity, it does have a special place in sneaker culture.
The Nike Air Griffey Max 1 was the first shoe of its kind in baseball. Before Griffey, baseball players rarely marketed shoes. You had Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders, of course, but their sneakers were geared for the football field more than the diamond. Frank Thomas had the Big Hurt with Reebok, but he didn’t have the same level of marketability as Junior.