By: Mike Carter and Kelly Byrnes
By:Mike
My dad always used to tell me that one of the first signs you are getting older is when guys your age start retiring from baseball. It’s like the final insult to your youth. Whatever marginal athletic skills you had dry up, leaving you in suburbia with a 9-5 job and a sizable mortgage payment.
Maybe you’ll play in a rec softball league somewhere with your friends, but you’ll be conscious of trying to not pull a hamstring, the days of stretching it into a double have left you, as a wiser brain begs for caution and restraint.
I was thinking about it this morning as I drove my son Jack to the dentist. I was mulling over the retirement of Adrian Beltre. I had reached out to Kelly the morning Beltre made the announcement knowing that this was one of his guys, and asked if I could write about him. Kelly is depressed; I can sense it in his tone. I feel that way too. Beltre is close to my age, kind of, and he leaves Big Sexy Bartolo Colon as the only active player who started his career in the 1990s. I feel old today, Dad.
Beltre’s career statistics are inscrutable and amazing. He retires with 3,116 hits, 477 home runs, 1707 RBI, career .286 average and .339 OBP. Of interest to me was that he only had 200 hits once in his 21 years in the big leagues. His skills never really diminished even as his legs betrayed him in his final seasons. The guy was born to hit baseballs. Want to talk about WAR? I do. His was 95.7 for his career, which makes him a top 40 player all-time. Only Brooks Robinson played more games at the hot corner. You can look it up!
The one thing I will remember about Beltre is how much fun he seemed to have playing a child’s game. If you ever need a good laugh, Google “Adrian Beltre’s head touch” and see clip after clip of teammates and opposing players touching his head or rubbing his scalp. His anger is palpable, or so it seems, and will make you laugh heartily. This allegedly started in Seattle when Felix Hernandez learned that he didn’t like anyone near his head. When Beltre went on to Boston, King Felix let his buddies on the Red Sox know that Beltre hated this. So of course, in typical baseball player fashion, his new teammates touched his head after home runs, in the dugout, and even during conferences on the mound. Go ahead. Google it now. Then you can come back and read the rest of my rambling. (Now they don’t have to google it, Mike)
Beltre is a sure-fire bet to make the Hall of Fame, and I think on the first year of eligibility. His is a career that you value for the entirety of it. Remember when people started whispering that he was lazy as a youngster in 2001, 2002? I do. That negative talk seemed to energize him and he dedicated himself to taking better care of himself and really pushing himself in his craft of playing third base and being a hitting machine. Many said that Seattle was making a mistake signing him to a big contract; turns out he had the last laugh. Beltre became the best third baseman of his generation, and really, it’s not even close. Do you realize that he is the ONLY third baseman in the history of the game to retire with 3000 hits and 400 home runs? If his legs were healthy the last 2-3 years, he likely would have reached 500 home runs. He will likely be best remembered for becoming an even better player in Texas (sorry Kelly), mentoring other young Hispanic players, and being an all-around great teammate by all accounts.
How can we forget his ongoing “fights” with Elvis Andrus? His interactions with other players on the bases? The fake throwing his glove in anger at the foul line when a double got past him. I saw him play a number of times in Chicago against the White Sox. I saw him do something during warm-ups that I wondered about at the time but then like most of my thoughts, drifted into nothingness, until I read about why he did that years later. He walked over to the bag and toe-tapped third base while the ball was thrown around the infield. In an interview on ESPN, I think, he mentioned that the toe tap at the corner of the third base bag during warm-ups was always to remind him how lucky he was to play in the major leagues, and how he never took his being there for granted. What great perspective from a terrific player. Reminds me of what Cal Ripken said when he retired: that when he had been young, he asked the veteran guys if they had any regrets or advice. Many said they wished they could have played better and longer. Others said they wished they had taken it more seriously. At the end of his talk, Ripken shared that he had gone about the game in a different fashion because of those conversations, setting out to accomplish what his skills, ability and determination allowed him to do. That applies to Adrian Beltre too; even though he was playful, he took what he was doing seriously. What a ballplayer. There certainly won’t be anyone like him for a long time.
Less than 100 days now until Spring Training, friends. Keep on keeping on!
By: Kelly
I woke up Tuesday morning to the news that Adrian Beltre officially announced his retirement from the game he has played professionally for more than half his life. It hit me hard and I thought I would try to write something about it until I got a message from Mike asking if I wanted him to write something on Beltre retiring. I was all for it because I knew Mike would knock it out of the ballpark which he did but he also inspired me to want to write a little something about my favorite ballplayer of the last two decades.
I remember vividly his MLB debut in June of 1998. I was sitting on my grandmas couch wondering who this 19 year old kid was, I mean he was only a couple years older than me. Flash forward to the 2004 season where he finished second in NL MVP voting and it happened to be his free agent year. I was excited for him moving forward with the Dodgers as he finally put together the season Dodgers fans had been waiting for. I came home from work one day that Hot Stove season where my cousin was waiting for me with a huge smile on his face. He was the one that broke the news to me that Beltre had bolted for Seattle. My first reaction was anger but then realized I would get to see Beltre on a consistent basis. I even got to meet him at Mariners Fanfest in 2005 where I got to shake his hand and get an autograph.
His time with the M’s might not have been what the people of Seattle thought they were getting. What I noticed with Beltre during his time with the Mariners was the fact he had become the best defensive third baseman in the game and his personality was starting to shine through. He was a joy to watch and you could always tell how much fun he was having while playing, watching him point to umpires to check his own check swings. Who does that? Beltre does, that’s who! When he left Seattle no way I would have thought he had a chance to make it into the Hall of Fame but in 5 years he will be Cooperstown bound on the first ballot.
Thank you AB for showing everyone that you can be one of the best of all-time while still playing the game with the exuberance of a child. Not sure anyone will be able to hit HR’s and drop to one knee like you did!