Below are the most significant retirements of this season. These are players who made it to the show, made major contributions, maybe earned some hardware along the way and are now moving on to life after baseball.
5x All Star; 2x Fireman of the Year; 2x World Series Champion
2nd in SP history in career appearances
3x All Star
2x All Star, 2x Silver Slugger
3x Gold Glove (CF), 2x World Series Champion
3x All Star, 2x Silver Slugger
4x All Star, 1x Gold Glove (SS)
3x All Star, 2x Gold Glove (C)
For the Love of the Game Award: Many players dream of making it to the big leagues, landing that monster contract and winning the World Series. For every player who makes it big, for every Pedro Pascual there are dozens of other players that you’ve never heard of. Those players who will toil in the experience that is minor league baseball, but never make it to the bigs. Minor league baseball is a grind. Long bus rides, dank hotel rooms, alcoholic coaches, backwater towns, moldy locker rooms and gimmicky promotions all must be dealt with. The “For The Love of the Game Award” is given to the recently retired player who never made it to the bigs, but toiled in the minors. Every season we will be giving this award to the player who most reminds us of Crash Davis and takes those blue chip prospects under his wing and shows them the ropes on their way to the top. These are the unsung pros upon which the Satchel Paige League is built. Those players who know they’ll probably never make it all the way, but show up every season and play simply for the love of the game. This season’s award goes to….
Sean Brown epitomizes what a baseball player is. During his 16-season long minor league career started over 100 games at 2B, 3B, DH, LF, RF and CF. He even made one pitching appearance. He showed up every season for work and played hard at whatever position he was asked to play. He played at every level of minor league ball too, from Rookie ball all the way to AAA. As a 4th round draft pick from Clinton Community College in Clinton, Iowa, Sean knew that there was almost no chance he was ever going to sniff the big leagues. He came back every season anyway, for 16 long years. He started 1491 games subbed in another 152. He always put up pretty good numbers too. He had a MILB career batting line of .296/.371/.512. He piled up 1001 runs, 1800 hits, 400 doubles, 298 home runs and 1084 RBI. Despite his long time in minor league ball, Sean just can't seem to get enough. He is now working for the Kane County Cougars as their PA Announcer and PR Director.
