Pudge to Retire

When I was just getting into baseball, I had three favorite non Oriole baseball players. Those players were Ken Griffey Jr., Kirby Puckett, and Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez. I just loved the way that those three guys played. They gave such great effort and they were so good. I would dream that one day they would come to the Orioles. We actually had a deal in place to bring Pudge to Baltimore, but Captain Angelos didn't want to give up Jeffrey Hammonds. What can you do though? Unfortunately, Mr. Puckett is no longer with us, having passed away in 2006. Mr. Griffey I have talked about several times before and he recently retired and then there was Pudge.

Rodriguez has now spent 21 seasons in the bigs. Most of his pro seasons were with the Texas Rangers and he will retire as a Ranger Monday, but he also spent time with the Florida Marlins, Detroit Tigers, New York Yankees, Houston Astros, and Washington Nationals. Rodriguez won the World Series in 2003 in his only season with the Marlins and also played in the World Series in 2006 with Detroit.

Pudge also has several records and accolades. He holds the records for most games caught. Rodriguez has 13 gold gloves and 14 all star games to his credit. He was the 1999 American League MVP and the 2003 NLCS MVP. Though he is best known for his defense, Pudge also has 7 silver sluggers. He is a surefire Hall of Famer.

In addition to all of his awards, are all of the impressive stats. Rodriguez was highest amoung active players in career caught stealing percentage and is even higher than my boy Matt Wieters there. He has 2,844 hits and while that is short of the magical 3,000 it isn't short by much and it is good for 44th best all time. In his long career the man has hit 311 home runs and 572 doubles (21st). Pudge has 1332 RBI, and 4,451 total bases, while also having 934 extra base hits.

This man is a living legend and we all got to see him play for a long time.

-Noland