Saturday, February 18, 2012

Tim Wakefield Retires

I'm majorly bummed out:
After 19 seasons in the majors -- 17 of them with the Boston Red Sox -- knuckleballer Tim Wakefield announced his retirement from baseball Friday afternoon. "This has been the hardest thing I've ever had to do, so it's with a heavy heart that I stand here today," Wakefield said, pausing to regain his composure. "And I'm saddened to say that I have decided to retire from this wonderful game of baseball."
Wakefield's announcement came at a 5 p.m. ET news conference at JetBlue Park, the team's new spring training facility.
"I'm very grateful I've been able to put this uniform on for such a long time and to win two World Series for this great city and I can finally say it's over," the 45-year-old said.
Wakefield walks away with 186 victories with the Red Sox, just six short of the team record shared by Cy Young and Roger Clemens. He recorded his 200th career victory late last season.
"It's a little surreal for me, still," Wakefield said of his achievements. "Once I get home and start to digest everything, it's pretty cool to have your name up there, but that doesn't change who I am as a person, or as a man and I'm grateful I've had the opportunity to achieve a lot of those goals and be high on the list of a lot of those records. Hopefully one day they can be broken because that's what records are for."
That just leaves R.A. Dickey as a knuckleball pitcher in the majors.  I've got to admit that I teared up at the video.

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