Miami Marlins: Curtis Granderson announces retirement from baseball
By Manny Gómez
After two decades across seven teams, including the Miami Marlins, outfielder Curtis Granderson announced his retirement from MLB today. Here’s what he meant to the game.
In MLB, ballplayers are typically defined in two different ways: elite or not. The now-former Miami Marlins outfielder Curtis Granderson never quite fit into either category. He was right down the center.
He was something like a modern-day Bobby Bonds. A player not worthy of the National Baseball Hall of Fame but who was valuable in his own right; a 3x All-Star and Silver Slugger award winner who did everything just right.
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Granderson emerged as a member of the Detroit Tigers in 2004, going on to take over as an everyday player in 2006. That season, Granderson struggled at the plate, slashing .260 / .335 / .438 and leading the league in strikeouts with 174.
From there, however, he wouldn’t look back. In the following two seasons, Grandy would lead the league in triples while also hitting 23 and 22 home runs respectively.
As a member of the New York Yankees beginning in 2010, Granderson would reach the apex of his career. In his first two seasons in pinstripes, Granderson hit 40 or more home runs in two consecutively. He even placed 4th in MVP votes in 2011 behind the eventual winner Justin Verlander followed by Jacoby Ellsbury and Jose Bautista.
From there, Granderson’s career began to fizzle a bit. He’d play for the New York Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers, Toronto Blue Jays, Milwaukee Brewers, and finally the Miami Marlins, slashing .230 / .333 / .429 in his final six MLB seasons.
All the while, as Granderson says in his statement, he worse his “socks high,” ultimately becoming a fan-favorite wherever he went.
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As a fan of the New York Yankees, I always appreciated the effort Curtis Granderson brought to the table day-in and day-out. His smile was infectious, his game was respected, and his John Sterling home run call (“The Grandy-man can… Ohhhhh the Grandy-man can”) unforgettable.