Tim Wakefield Retires from Boston Red Sox
Tim Wakefield is retiring from baseball and the Boston Red Sox. Wakefield has pitched 17 seasons for the Red Sox, helping the team to win two World Series titles during that time. The knuckleball pitcher began his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, but certainly made his biggest impact in the game as a member of the Red Sox. Now the 45-year-old is walking away from the game with 186 career victories.
An official news conference is going to take place at 5 p.m. ET in the team's new spring training facility (JetBlue Park). After a rough 2011 season, it seemed like this was going to become the next step for Wakefield, but at least now he can focus on his personal life even more. His struggles during September were front page news for a while though, so he isn't exactly going out on top.
Wakefield will finish his career in Major League Baseball with a record of 200-180, an ERA of 4.41 and 2,156 career strikeouts. He made 463 career starts; pitching 3,226 2/23 innings over his extended career. His best season was actually his first with the Red Sox, when he went 16-8 with a 2.95 ERA way back in 1995. He does have two nice World Series rings to take with him into retirement though as well as becoming one of the longest-tenured pitchers to ever wear a Red Sox uniform.
It was definitely time for Wakefield to hang up the spikes and cap, even though he appeared fit enough to pitch a few more seasons. There was no reason left for him to continue hanging on though, so maybe this was a decision geared towards spending more time with the family.
What do you think of the career that Wakefield put together? Was he one of the best knuckleball pitchers to play the game?
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