It’s not official yet, but all the signs are that the Yankees’ Mike Mussina will be announcing his retirement this week:
Jim Palmer has known Mike Mussina for 17 years, but rarely had his friend seemed as loose and carefree as he did this summer. Mussina was pitching well at age 39, his elbow sturdy, his outlook sunny. He was at peace with his career and content with his plan to retire at the end of the season.
“To be as good as Mike Mussina, you’ve got to be a little bit selfish,” Palmer, the Hall of Fame pitcher, said this week. “A lot of times, you have to put your career ahead of what’s good for your family. For him, he said: ‘I don’t want to miss this time. You can’t ever make it up.’ He proved he could still do it, but he didn’t have to do it anymore, and he could prioritize what’s important in his life.”
To Mussina, the tug of home was stronger than the career goal of 300 victories. He has decided to retire, according to two officials who have been briefed on his decision, with a formal announcement expected by the end of the week. Arn Tellem, Mussina’s agent, said Mussina would make a decision shortly.
Mussina, who turns 40 next month, is leaving after his first season of 20 victories. He had a career record of 270-153 for the Baltimore Orioles and the Yankees; only five pitchers have had as many victories with as high a winning percentage.
“His legacy is going to be one of the best pitchers to ever put on a uniform, a guy who was able to do it in the American League East his whole career,” a teammate, Johnny Damon, said in a telephone interview Wednesday night.
“We all know how tough this division is, and to go out on top, winning 20 games; I was proud to be a part of that. I think it’s a nice sendoff, and hopefully in five years, he can get a lot of people supporting him for the Hall of Fame. To do what he did as a pitcher in the American League East during the steroid era, it’s a pretty big accomplishment.”
As Sports Illustrated’s Mike Donovan notes, acquiring Mussina eight years ago may be one of the smartest moves the Yankees have made recently:
By Christmastime of 2000, Mike Mussina was already 32 years old. He had been on five All-Star teams. He was a perennial American League Cy Young candidate. Everybody loved him. Everybody wanted him. “Moose” had 10 years in the league with the Orioles by that time. He had racked up 147 wins. He was the Orioles’ future. He was, in every sense of the word, an ace.
And so the Yankees, as they seem to do so naturally, snatched him away, offering the free agent a six-year, $88.5 million contract in the winter of 2000 to come pitch in the Bronx. And Mussina, seeing the mess the Orioles were about to become, hurriedly took the deal, much to the horror of his fans in Baltimore.
(“It’s like a lot of fans have been stabbed,” O’s pitcher Chuck McElroy said at the time, “and that wound is going to be hard to heal.” That wound, it seems, is still not healed.)
In the end, despite all the gnashing about leaving Baltimore and the outrageous size of the deal and having to deal with the supposed pressures of pitching in New York, signing one of the richest contracts ever offered to a pitcher was exactly the right move for Mussina. For the Yankees, it turned out ever better. It became one of the best long-term investments that they have ever made.
I know. We all know. Mussina never won a World Series with the Yankees. He never won one at all. In 17 postseason games with the Yanks, he had a losing record (5-7). He had a so-so postseason ERA in New York (3.80). He was never considered the “ace” of the staff, not like he was in Baltimore. He was never Roger Clemens or Andy Pettitte or even David Wells. Lately, he wasn’t even Chien-Ming Wang.
No, he never won a Series, but Mussina, over the course of his eight years with the Yankees, proved to be more valuable than any of those pitchers ever were in their time in New York. He was steady when the Yankees were shaky. He was a veritable bargain when they were throwing money away on Kevin Brown, Carl Pavano, Jeff Weaver and, at times, even the great Clemens. He was dependable when no one else was.
And, unlike the Rocket, he leaves baseball with his reputation intact.
I’ve been following Mussina for what seems like forever. Long before he made it to the Yankees, he was the ace of the Orioles staff in an era when Baltimore was as much of a powerhouse in the AL East as the Red Sox are today (remember the 1996 ALCS ?) When Mussina was on the mound, you always knew that Baltimore had a leg up.
Mussina hasn’t been the star of the Yankees’ staff, but he has been steady and his final season was incomparable.
He’ll be missed.
