A slew of retirement announcements in recent weeks have turned the 2016 season into a kind of changing of the guard. Players who have seemingly been around forever will depart from their current teams, leaving room for the next round of superstars to take their place.
Of particular note are two players who have had similar careers in a way, but are ending their careers in very different ways. As in any national baseball story, the players have to be from New York and Boston and of course, those in question are David Ortiz and Alex Rodriguez.
| Career | Seasons | GP | R | 2B | HR | RBI | SB | AVG | OBP | SLG | ASG | Top 5 MVP |
| David Ortiz | 20 | 2,358 | 1,390 | 620 | 528 | 1,728 | 17 | .285 | .379 | .550 | 10 | 5 |
| Alex Rodriguez | 22 | 2,781 | 2,021 | 547 | 696 | 2,084 | 329 | .295 | .380 | .550 | 14 | 6 |
Above are the career stats for the two superstars and despite the fact that Ortiz is having a much better season, there is no question that Rodriguez was the better player. In addition to the numbers listed above, it is also important to note that while they came in the top five for MVP a similar number of times, Rodriguez won the award three times (2003, 2005, 2007), won ten Silver Sluggers to Ortiz’s seven, and won two (largely undeserved) Gold Gloves, which more bring up the fact that Rodriguez actually played a position rather than giving him credit for being an amazing defender.
While Rodriguez has the advantage down the line, there is no question that Ortiz has had a great career of his own and has done so in more than 400 fewer games than Rodriguez, a number that can explain the lesser production numbers in stats like RBI, runs scored, and steals (ok, maybe not steals).
Because of a slightly later start to Ortiz’s career, the pair are separated by only a year in age, but are having very different seasons this year. Ortiz announced his retirement at the beginning of the season and has went on to hit .309/.397/.617 (that slugging percent currently leads the AL) to this point while Rodriguez’s line of .204/.252/.356 has hastened his plans. Prior to the season, Rodriguez had stated that he would end his career at the end of his contract following 2017, but the Yankees had other plans and are willing to pay him for that season, but prefer he stay off the field.
So, while Ortiz has spent the entire season receiving accolades from every team around the league, Rodriguez has been doing his best to stay relevant. Not helping matters was Rodriguez’s PED suspension in 2014, but that can’t be the sole blame for the difference in treatment as Ortiz tested positive for steroid use in 2003, which was the first season he really became the hitter he is known as now rather than the .266 hitter he was through 455 games with the Twins. The bigger problem likely lied in his treatment of the media, especially during the later years of his career and the events preceding the aforementioned suspension.
And this brings us to the retirement tour as a whole. It is an extremely new part of the game and only players for the Yankees and Red Sox seem to qualify with the noticeable exception of Chipper Jones, an unquestioned first ballot Hall of Famer. In addition, you have to announce your intentions to retire at the beginning of the season and be a public favorite. For example, Mariano Rivera checks all the marks of being a Yankee, a public favorite and announcing his retirement early, but Manny Ramirez did not, as he ostracized everyone around him and attempted to extend his career far beyond the point that any team in baseball was interested.
Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell should both be Hall of Famers, never had a serious run in with the PED police and were always cordial with reporters, but failed the test of not playing for New York or Boston. This is also likely the cause of their lack of Hall of Fame interest, as it took three years to get Biggio in and Bagwell is still on the outside looking in (for now, at least).
In the end, both the retirement tour and the Hall of Fame vote are largely based on a media that remains incredibly tilted towards the East Coast. Because of this, the general consensus around the country of the retirement tour is blase. While it’s one thing if the player is a guaranteed first ballot Hall of Famer like Jones, Rivera, or Ken Griffey Jr. (who didn’t get a tour, but did get to finish his career in Seattle), Ortiz hasn’t even had the career of Rodriguez and, thanks to the voters’ clear anti-juice bias, chances are neither could make the Hall. Forcing this down the throats of fans who range from ambivalent to antagonistic towards Ortiz just isn’t a good look.
The Red Sox should absolutely celebrate Ortiz. He was as important as anyone in the first Red Sox World Series win in nearly a century when they won in 2004, and has easily been one of baseball’s greatest DHs of all-time. He’s on a short list of the best Boston hitters of all time and it wouldn’t be surprising at all to see his #34 retired shortly after the man himself stops playing. That doesn’t mean that fans of the other 29 teams need to celebrate a player who likely caused them much torment or, in the case of most NL teams, was completely irrelevant.
In the end, it is probably best to leave these things to the teams. If a player has even pushed them away, as A-Rod has, then they may not get a celebration, but this way the fans of the lower 28 will have one less thing to despise the Yankees and Red Sox over and will be able to appreciate their own stars even more.
