Hangin' 'em up

[Guest Edgy DC]

Bill Mueller.

[smg58]

Only one exceptional year, but always a useful guy with a solid glove. Spent most of his career with the Giants, but I'm guessing that Red Sox Fans will remember him the most fondly.

[Guest cleonjones11]

Chris Woodward

[Guest Edgy DC]

What's your source? Or is this what you want?

[Guest OlerudOwned]

Woody retiring to pursue a career in the meatpacking industry.

[metirish]

J.T. Snow retires,will join the Giants and work in various roles,including radio braodcaster.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

If only Yadier Molina's home run had turned out to be as benign as J. T. Snow's.

[Gwreck]

Apples and oranges. Snow didn't hit that homer in an elimination game.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

More like apples and pears. If the Mets had lost that game, they'd have been down 2 games to 0 in a best of 5.

[Guest cooby]

OlerudOwned wrote: Woody retiring to pursue a career in the meatpacking industry.

Get out!

[Elster88]

Piazza too.

[metirish]

Begwell expected to announce retirement this week,Astros working on a post-career deal for him.

[Guest iramets]

"Retirement" doesn't exactly mean what it used to mean, does it? It used to denote a ballplayer who opted against continuing to play, despite at least one offer of employment. I think of players like Dimaggio and Allie Reynolds and Koufax when I think of ballplayers retiring. Now it means more like "No one wants to sign me to the most provisional of contracts so it looks like I'm done. Stick a fork in me, fellas, because I'm telling what the world already knows: I cain't play anymore, and this is me signing off, acknowleging that fact."

[metirish]

Well Bagwell gets a $7 million buyout for 07,after making $16 million last year....nice work.

[Frayed Knot]

]"Retirement" doesn't exactly mean what it used to mean, does it?"

Which isn't so much a bad thing.

Used to be that when these guys drew only somewhat better pay than much of the working world - as opposed to 'set-for-life' money - there was a significant lure for aging players to latch onto something (frequently something sales/pr related) when the opportunity came up even if they possibly had a year or two left simply for the fear that the offer wouldn't be there a few years later when their names may have lost their luster of 'ballplayer' and had faded into 'say, didn't you used to be somebody?'
Today, with so few outside jobs that will come close even to reduced end-of-career sports salaries, when someone merely talks about getting out when they want to rather than when they have to (Tiki, Pettitte) there are voices from both inside and outside the sport who are quick to call them quitters and/or question their sanity & motivations.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I'll be curious to see what Tom Glavine does if he wins number 300 this year and pitches reasonably well. Will he walk away, like he's hinted at in the past? Or will he keep pitching as long as someone's willing to pay him?

Jesse Orosco is a player who retired while he had a contract, by the way. He had been signed (or invited to spring training) by Arizona but decided he had had enough. There are probably other recent examples.

[Frayed Knot]

<<<<<---------- "It's my option so I'll do whatever I want you whippersnapper"

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Whippersnapper??

I know Glavine is old, but I'm even older! He should be calling me "Gramps!"

[Guest Edgy DC]

Jackie Robinson had an offer to be a vice president of human resources (I think) for Chock Full-o-Nuts or to take a fading-veteran payday from the hated rival Giants (with risk to his personal equity) with whispers of Natinoal League baseball preparing to leave town.

Back then, few baseball players got paid like a corporate vice president. These days, few corporate vice presidents get paid like a baseball player.

[Guest iramets]

Edgy DC wrote: These days, few corporate vice presidents get paid like a baseball player.

Quite true, but back when the winds started to shift (late 70s-early 80s) in this direction, there were those who wondered if these unprecedented salary-levels would have the opposite effect on career length than they are clearly now having.

That is, it was widely speculated that an athlete in his early thirties, with a beat-up body and a burned-out psyche and having earned much more money than he ever can expect to spend in his lifetime, might not say "Oh, fuck it, it's the beach for me--who needs this grief?"

These speculators are not likely to be found self-identifying, but there were plenty of them, way back when. They simply didn't gauge properly the limitless capacity of humans for greed, nor of athletes for self-deception.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I know what you mean. For years I've been hearing that any player who lasts into his 40's is the last of his kind.

I remember when Johnny Bench and Carl Yastremski retired. They were the last players we'd see who'd play their entire career for one team.

Mike Schmidt would later be the last of his kind.

And after that, so would Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Gabe Kapler reportedly hanging up his spikes to manage the Greenville (SC) Drive, Boston's affilliate in the South Atlantic League.

He's only 31. He claims to have had "ample opportunity" to continue playing.

[seawolf17]

*coughcough*roids*coughcough*

[Frayed Knot]

Jeff Bagwell made it offical today to no one's surprise seeing as how he hasn't been able to play for nearly 2 years now due to shoulder injuries.

Real nice career; .297/.408/.540 with over 2,300 hits, just under 1,000 of them for extra-bases, 449 HRs, 1,500+ RBIs, and even 200+ SBs ... much of it in the pitcher-friendly Astrodome.

He gets over-shadowed a bit by all the monster hitting 1B-men of his era but may have been the best all-around player at that position for most of the '90s as he was real good at just about all aspects of the game. He fielded better than all the big sloppy, sluggers, out-hit all the nifty fielding types, and was probably a better baserunner than all of them.