The left-handed reliever spent seven seasons in the Bay Area while winning three World Series championships as a member of the Giants’ organization.
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Sure, it’s great to play for a rabid fan base, but after experiencing firsthand how powerful that fervor can be when it is channeling extreme negativity, it really makes you think twice about where all that collective anger comes from, and whether you want to subject yourself and your family to that all the time.
Yeah, that’s right, I said it. A few days later, as the two were headed to bed, Walker changed his mind and told his dad that he shouldn’t retire. If I could put up a 0.80 (ERA) during the season that’d be awesome. He has pitched the last month with braces on both his knees. “The badgering that we did back and forth, but also what he did on the mound”.
In fact, you – the City of Brotherly Love – are one of the 5 things he won’t miss at all about baseball upon his retirement at the end of this coming season. “It must be super hard to fly around on those decked-out charter flights all the time”.
“I’m very excited for my next chapter in life. It’s just something I’m not going to miss”.
“We’re not putting on these rings without the guy”, Lopez said.
Thankfully, the next time I pee in a cup, it will be for my Major League Baseball pension physical two decades from now. He leaves a better, more tolerant man, too.
This is why the recent trend of “look at me” machismo, mostly via these elaborate, annoying and overindulgent hand signals and signs, irks me so much.
Notice how I didn’t say the game is 100% clean. Doesn’t he? Heading into this season, he was already a two-time victor of this prestigious honor – for slicing up his hand trying to separate frozen hamburger patties, and for tearing knee ligaments after he kneeled down to let his son jump into his arms and instead got bowled over. “That’s entertaining. Jeremy’s one of those entertaining players that keeps all the guys loose and fun”. When ya’ gotta go, ya’ gotta go, but when you can’t… you can’t.
While Affeldt had kept open the idea of pitching one more year when this season began, he said he would listen to his sons to help him make the decision – if they wanted him home, that might win out.
Affeldt’s greatest accomplishments have come in the postseason.
“I think that’s part of what started this door opening, me leaving, was I don’t know what else I could possibly do and I don’t know what else I could possibly be a part of to say that I didn’t come full circle”. Through the rest of that season, Affeldt would retire 15 of the 18 batters he faced, without surrendering a run. Posey was silent for three minutes. “Sorry Larry (Baer), I don’t know if you knew that”.
But it’s not like Affeldt – who also doesn’t like showboating, Wrigley Field, drug tests and travel – is lying.
Affeldt’s contributions go beyond the field of play.
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“To be able to come through the way I did, I take a lot of pride in that”. Ryne Sandberg is a Hall of Famer, but his Cubs never got to the World Series. While baseball players don’t seem to be hurting for money – Affeldt has made over $40 million in his career, according to Spotrac – clean players should be rewarded for their play without the suspicion that they cheated to get there.
