It's getting to where someone can't even reach his 3,000th hit without being sandwiched tightly around less than happy news. You'd think Ichiro Suzuki could turn on Chris Rusin's 2-0 service Sunday and rip it off the top of the right field wall for a triple without players bearing sadder news overshadowing him.
Not that the terminally modest Ichiro would complain, mind you. But he shared Sunday with Alex Rodriguez's gracious announcement that he would give in to the Yankees essentially firing him as a player while planning to make him an advisor and field instructor.
And Ichiro's barely had time to savor the magnitude of his milestone — only Hall of Famer Paul Molitor sits with him among 3,000-hit clubbers who got the milestone with a triple — when comes, right on the entrails of A-Rod's and Mark Teixeira's retirements to be, news that Prince Fielder's career may be over, too.
Fielder's surgically repaired neck betrayed him again this season, taking him to the operating theater for a second herniated disk procedure, two years after the first ended his 2014 after 42 games, after the Rangers swapped Ian Kinsler to the Tigers to get him, in a deal in which the Tigers gladly sent along $30 million to help pay for him.
The second surgery ended his season. Now, it's going to end his career. Doctors have said the damage could be more grave the next time if Fielder tries to play professional baseball again. Fielder is expected to confirm his retirement at a Wednesday press conference.
When the Tigers let it be known they were shopping Fielder, following their exit from the 2013 American League Championship Series at the hands of the Red Sox, some were genuinely surprised. Others pointed to what they thought was Fielder's fatalistic attitude about the loss, especially after he'd been caught in a rundown and tagged out at third after a belly flop slide that made him look like a whale falling out of a boat.
"It was cool. The season was fine. It is what it is, bro," Fielder said of 2013's sad finish, after he was traded. "You can't take it back. Everything is cool. We got to the playoffs. Unfortunately we didn't get where we wanted to go." To enough, it seemed as though Fielder could take it or leave it, even allowing his personal turmoils of the time. The superstar who didn't necessarily like being one.
Detroit Free Press columnist Mitch Albom probably spoke for too many when he wrote in that moment, "Fielder played every day. He was serious about his job. He just didn't always seem thrilled with it. He kept things to himself. From the day he arrived, he didn't want to talk about his father. As the time passed, he was pleasant, but private. He played and stepped off the stage. Now he's on someone else's stage. It is what it is."
Still others thought an apparent hitch in his swing, which may have come out of nowhere, compromised his power in 2013 and thus soured the Tigers on him in hand with the ALCS exit. Unless the hitch developed as a result of the early stage of his oncoming neck troubles.
Even there, many thought the Tigers were trying to ease his pain in another way: it was said his marriage was on the rocks, and there were whispers that an unidentified teammate was having an affair with Fielder's wife.
Fielder had filed for divorce in May 2013, but a year later the couple reconciled. For a family man like Fielder, who has been known to cherish his time with his sons, perhaps cauterizing the pain of his long enough estrangement from his father, former Tiger slugger Cecil, that was a phenomenal burden removed.
It couldn't stop his neck issue from arising once. Then, twice. Some now think the Tigers pulled a fast one on the Rangers. In the wake of a possible investigation into whether the Padres were trying to pull a fast one and not disclosing full medical information — involving the busted Collin Rea-for-Luis-Castillo deal with the Marlins, when Rea left his first Marlins start early with elbow pain that now requires Tommy John surgery, forcing the Padres to reverse the deal — that is not a comfortable idea.
Then-Tigers manager Dave Dombrowski was the major mover in the Fielder-for-Ian-Kinsler deal. "Dombrowski's eagerness to unload Fielder should have been a red flag," writes SportsDay's Gerry Fraley. Fielder's lost ability to pull the ball airborne indicated "something" wrong with the big first baseman/designated hitter.
"Fielder returned last season from the first surgery and piled up the singles to hit .305 and drove in 98 runs but again did not pull pitches in the air," Fraley continues. "He had a .463 slugging percentage. This season has been a disaster along the lines of 2014 for Fielder and the Rangers. Like everyone else, the scouts were unaware of Fielder's medical condition. They wondered if his problems were linked to body size."
Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. Estranged though he's been from his father, Fielder has the same body type. Large boned, barrel chested, the kind of body in which players who have it tend to lose their hitting skills earlier, the harder it gets to move the bat swiftly through the strike zone as they age.
And Rangers manager Jeff Banister, who loves Fielder as much as anyone in the game can, has let slip hints that he thought Fielder wasn't at a hundred percent health in the second half of 2015. This season, occasional benchings clearly frustrated both manager and player, especially when Fielder showed the very occasional flash of his former self.
The Rangers shared what they presumed to be Fielder's hope that his career wouldn't go the way his father's did. Especially not a guy who was known to be accommodating in the clubhouse and always willing to work with and teach younger players, even if he was wary of the spotlight often enough.
Cecil Fielder, 6'3" and a conservatively estimated 230 pounds, was shipped from Detroit to the Yankees at age 32. Two seasons later: gone at 34. Prince Fielder has actually outperformed his father (more hits, more runs batted in, more wins above replacement level, more all-star teams, higher on-base percentage) in every known way but one. If his career is indeed over, the younger Fielder will retire with exactly the same number of home runs as his father. 319.
Thanks to a stubborn pain in the neck. It is what it is.
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