GREENVILLE, S.C. -- Willie Mays Aikens spent 14 years behind bars and on Wednesday he started the first day of the rest of his life.

“I still had four years to go on my sentence,” Aikens said. “I wasn’t expecting to come out in 2008, but when you have a spiritual life and you have hope in God, anything can happen.”

Aikens was at the top of his game in the '80s while playing for the Kansas City Royals. However, it all came to an end in 1994 when Aikens was jailed on a crack cocaine conviction, bribery and gun charges.

Aikens was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison because of mandatory sentencing guidelines that gave crack cocaine offenders harsher punishment than powdered cocaine offenders.

The reasoning behind the guidelines was that crack cocaine defendants were more violent, an idea advocates said statistics never supported.

Aikens’ case served as the cornerstone for changing those guidelines. He along with 20,000 other inmates are being released.

“They used my case as an example to show that crack sentencing was cruel and unusual punishment,” Aikens said. “I’m glad that after spending 14 years in prison, something good came out of this.”

After visiting with his family for a few days, Aikens will go to a halfway house in Kansas City, Mo., where he will spend the next three to four months. After that, Aikens said he will return home to Seneca.