Maybe you retired on your own terms, or maybe Father Time sent you repeated messages. If you’re not a professional athlete or entertainer, the public probably wasn’t clamoring for you to end your career.
We can all list a number of athletes who have overstayed their welcome and some are still playing much to our disdain. With actors and actresses, it’s more difficult to see the decline as they just get less juicy roles as they age. However, they can extend their careers well beyond their 40’s.
It’s only natural for baseball players to want to extend their careers beyond usefulness to a team. The money is too good to not go kicking and screaming in the night. Personally, I like to remember players at their best (unless their decline benefits my teams).
Every winter a handful of ML players are faced with the reality that nobody wants to employ them any longer and especially at the salary they are accustomed to earning. Most fans (me included) won’t realize they “retired” until sometime in the following season when we don’t see their names in the box scores. For some, they jump the gun and announce their retirement when bigger (and younger) names are signing extensions or big deals.
Until he announced his retirement the other day, I hadn’t given Ehire Adrianza much thought. Heck, I don’t even know how to pronounce his first name. The 35-year-old infielder called it quits after a 12-year ML career. If the name doesn’t sound familiar that’s okay because he was a career .237 hitter and never played in more than 114 games in a season.
However, and it’s a big one, he was a member of two World Championship teams (2014 Giants) and (2021 Braves). While I can’t remember any significant contributions to either team, I’m sure fans of both teams have fond memories.
Many ballplayers speak about how difficult it is to stay in the big leagues once you get there and not just those on the fringe. The game is made up of more guys like Adrianza, whose retirements will go unnoticed by most of the baseball world which isn’t to say that he didn’t have a connection with fans.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about two free agents that are looking for jobs despite long, productive careers. J.D Martinez and Justin Turner are professional hitters coming off subpar seasons only one year removed from productive seasons. However, teams have to figure if these were merely “one-offs” or the sign of decline. The major difference with these situations and that of Adrianza is that he’s only played in 50 ML games since 2021.
I haven’t posted a photo of a player in a few months, so it’s funny that I’d choose one of Adrianza for his retirement. I was able to locate this one from 2018 pretty quickly. He didn’t do anything particularly notable during the three-game series I attended in June in Minneapolis. Twins teammate, Jake Cave did more that weekend than Trout or Pujols.
.
As friend, Steve Comma, and I often remark, he played in the majors and did so for parts of 12 seasons and that is no small feat. Congrats on your career Ehire!
