Thursday, February 11, 2010

Tom Glavine And Frank Thomas To Retire

Today, two strong Hall Of Fame candidates signaled their retirement from baseball. The Big Hurt has scheduled a press conference for tomorrow where he is likely to decide it's all over after being unable to find a team neither for the entire 2009 season nor this off season while Glavine effectively retired after today taking a job as an assistant to the Atlanta Braves President John Schuerholz.





Thomas finishes with a career .301 average and 521 home runs with his peak years being during baseball's Steroid Era. Thomas, however, was one of the loudest advocates of drug testing for baseball players and he was the only player who was willing to be interviewed during the preparation of the Mitchell Report. Thomas played the bulk of his career with the Chicago White Sox where he spent his first 16 seasons after being selected in the first round of the 1989 draft but left on somewhat bad terms in 2005. After a year in Oakland he signed a 2 year $18 million contract with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2007 but was released early in the 2008 season after a lack of production, to be picked up again by the Athletics where he ended his career.



And as for Glavine, let's recap. The 23rd pitcher to achieve 300+ career wins (and only the 4th southpaw to hit that total), 3.54 career ERA, 10 time All Star, two time Cy Young winner (plus a further four top 3 finishes) and five years on the MVP ballot. If that wasn't enough he was handy with the bat as well, winning the Silver Slugger 4 times and he managed to walk a heck of a lot for a pitcher. Glavine was a second round draft pick for Atlanta in 1984 after choosing a career despite also being picked in the 4th round of the 1984 NHL draft. And so today a 17 year professional career with the Braves, interrupted only with a 5 year stint with the New York Mets in the twilight of his career, both finishes and carries on from where it started 26 years ago.

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