Having sustained a neck injury which required surgery for the second time around, Texas Rangers’ slugger, Prince Fielder, is leaving his beloved sport for good, New York Times reported.
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Texas Rangers designated hitter Prince Fielder (84) during a Major League Baseball game against the Los Angeles Angels at Angel Stadium of Anaheim.
Fielder played in only 42 games his first season in Texas in 2014 after a first spinal fusion surgery.
Fielder kept his spirits up despite the sadness of retiring, and was even able to deftly fend off one of the stupidest questions ever, with a reporter asking Fielder, “Do you understand what Lou Gehrig was going through in his famous speech?”
“It’s just a really hard thing to watch his career come to an end like this”. “My body, it just gave out”. He suffered a neck injury in June 2014, which ended the season for him. After hitting.305 and driving in 98 runs in 2015, the bottom fell out this year.
Fielder has struggled all season, hitting just.212 with only 44 RBI and eight home runs.
Fielder, a six-time All Star, played with the Brewers from 2005-2011.
Fielder leaves as a career.283 hitter with 319 homers – the same number that his father Cecil also finished with – and 1,028 RBI in 1,611 games. He received the Silver Slugger Award three times during his career, but fell just short of being named MVP on several occasions.
Fielder, who wore a neck brace during the presser due to his recent surgery, said that his kids wouldn’t allow him to be upset.
Fielder’s contract pays him $24 million a year through 2020.
In the same flash, the notion that Fielder didn’t care about baseball should also end. Fielder spent his first seven major league seasons in Milwaukee, where he and Counsell were teammates from 2007-11. Everything you hear about him is how great a teammate he was.
The Tigers, who traded him to the Texas Rangers after the first two years of the deal, are still responsible for $6 million of his annual salary, with the Rangers paying the rest.
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In 2012, Fielder became a free agent and signed a 9-year $214 million contract with the Detroit Tigers, which was the largest contract in that teams’ history. “Hopefully we can win the World Series and pop some champagne”.
