Baseball's greats don't always know when it's time to step off the field or the mound. Very few of them spare us the sorrow of their decline, whether it's a long, slow decline or a fast, furious fall from the peak of Mount Olympus. Those few become even more vivid each time another genuine great clings, careens, even crashes.
"Why did he quit? He quit because he wasn't Joe DiMaggio anymore," said the Hall of Famer's brother, Tom, after DiMaggio turned down another $100,000 to play in 1952. Ground down by injuries, finally having a back that looked twice as old as he actually was, DiMaggio didn't need to be told twice, after a 1951 that might have been considered respectable ... for a promising rookie or a middle infielder in that time and place.
Sandy Koufax hovered far above the peak of Olympus when he announced his retirement in November 1966. The late Tommy John surgery pioneer Dr. Frank Jobe, said a decade ago, "As I look back on it now, Sandy Koufax needed Tommy John surgery, but I didn't know enough about the body and the physiology of the body to know what he needed. We just assumed it was arthritis."
Mike Schmidt shocked baseball by retiring in May 1989 ... while he sat atop the National League's RBI leaderboard without hitting particularly often or hard. The man who was both a study at third base and an ICBM launcher at the plate wouldn't hear of hanging on. No better description exists than that of Thomas Boswell:
Schmidt . . . was not meant to comb gray hairs. From him, we only expected the sublime. He looked like some huge, graceful shortstop misplaced at third base. When he came to bat, the number 20 on his back might have stood for the number of rows he intended to hit the ball into the bleachers.
For many fans, Schmidt's departure was a shock that left a sense of loss . . . Once in awhile, however, the man himself knows best. On Memorial Day, Schmidt connected again. He did what so many great athletes have failed to do; he left us wanting more.
Just like Koufax. Just like DiMaggio. Just like Ted Williams, who willed himself to a final solid season and finished with a blast into the right field seats. Just like Lou Gehrig, who was taken down by insidious illness. Just unlike Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Steve Carlton, Joe Morgan, Rickey Henderson, and Albert Pujols, among too many others.
"Most great players these days torture their teams, their fans, and themselves," Boswell wrote when Schmidt decided doing just that wasn't going to be his style, "playing for years past their prime, for the checks and the cheers."
Fred McGriff, inducted into the Hall of Fame to join the foregoing Sunday, elected not to prolong the agony, either. After two seasons in which his spirit remained only too willing but his body replied, "Not so fast, Bro," the Crime Dog called it a career after 2004. His 2023 Hall classmate, Scott Rolen, likewise nagged to death by injuries in his final few seasons, kind of split the difference: he walked away from the game after the 2012 season, but didn't file his retirement papers for over a year to follow.
Now, we're watching a pair of no-doubt future Hall of Famers entering declines we can only hope they decide are unworthy of their past greatnesses. The only simple part of the watching is that, this year, they both pitch for the Mets.
Justin Verlander did what some people thought might have been impossible previously. After sitting out 2021 recuperating from Tommy John surgery, Verlander led the entire Show with a 1.75 ERA, a 0.83 walks/hits per inning pitched rate, and a 218 ERA+, not to mention a (finally untainted) World Series ring with last year's Astros. It just so happened to be his walk year, as well. He signed big with the Mets. For every start in which he almost resembles his classic self, he's had two or three in which he resembles the old man he actually is in baseball terms.
Max Scherzer — his longtime Detroit rotation mate — has begun to look almost as sad. Half his starts have qualified as quality starts if not vintage Scherzer, but half have seen him slapped silly, climaxing in Saturday night's disaster against the Red Sox: 6hits, 4 home runs, and 5 earned runs. He's had 6 starts surrendering 5 earned runs or more. He has his worst fielding-independent pitching rate (FIP) since 2011: 4.79. Two years younger than Verlander, and likewise with a World Series ring (the 2019 Nationals) on his resume, Max the Knife's edge has begun dulling.
The Mets came into this season having two thirds of the world expecting them to rule the earth, or at least the National League East. Didn't happen. Now they're talking about moving pricy veterans on short-term deals, including Verlander (who's said to have drawn interest from the NL West-contending Giants) and Scherzer. They may make the moves prior to this year's August 1 trade deadline.
Both pitchers have full no-trade clauses they must be talked into waiving. They also have something else to ponder: legacies. They've both gone from wholly justifying previous long-term commitments, Verlander in Houston and Scherzer in Washington, to catcalls, boos, and social media brickbats. Most of those, of course, come from the kind of Met fan to whom the season is lost after one bad inning ... during opening week. But enough come from knowledgeable observers who fear their legacies incurring unwashable stains.
Unless either man discovers something missing that can be retrieved, even by old men with old arms, there'd be few things sadder than seeing Verlander or Scherzer insisting on hanging on beyond their greatness for the checks and the cheers. Sadder, and sadly not unprecedented.
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