Praise for a Moose

  You stay classy, Mike Mussina.

This past week, Mike Mussina, less than a month shy of his fortieth birthday, announced his retirement.  In the following days, pundits, personalities, and experts alike weighed in on his candidacy as a Hall of Famer.  Whether the Moose deserves a spot alongside the all-time greats of the game is not for me to decide.  I’ll leave that to the Peter Gammons and Tim Kurkjians of the world.  I, however, can comment on the way in which Mussina, ever the consummate professional, left the sport.

When baseball historians look back at the pitchers of what has already becomeknown as the steroid era, Mussina and his 270 wins will take a back seat to the chemically enhanced longevity of Roger Clemens, the unapologetic nastiness of Randy Johnson, and the consistent success of John Smoltz.  When they speak of a bookish yet successful right hander that excelled due to his mind as much as his talent, Greg Maddux will push his way to the front before Mussina’s name enters the conversation.  Mussina was never the best pitcher in the league, he never tallied up gaudy numbers or made opposing batters look embarrassingly bad.  Instead, he consistently and quietly succeeded, never drawing the attention from his teammates in a win or passing the buck to them in a loss.  Mussina carried himself through an era of turmoil with the same straightforward regularity as he did on the mound.

Mussina entered the 2008 season as an afterthought for the Yankees’ brass.  Having experienced the worst year of his 18 year career (11-10, 5.15 ERA), he came into spring training unofficially competing for the fifth spot in the starting rotation.  By mid-June, Mussina was 10-4 with a 3.87 ERA and people began to take notice.  On June 6 ^th , I wrote the following: Mussina did what any consummate professional must do in order to succeed—he adjusted. He developed an incredibly slow curve, worked on that running two-seam fastball, and changed the way he approaches hitters. Watch a Mussina start; you will see opponents off balance, frustrated that they could not center an 86 mph fastball. In a season where Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes are looking like busts, Chien Ming Wang has suddenly forgotten how to throw a strike, and Andy Pettitte seems to have aged a good six to twelve years, Mussina has been a welcome revelation.   Mussina had put the demons of 2007 behind him and looked towards his most successful season in five years.

In the midst of an underwhelming and disappointing season in the Bronx, Mike Mussina’s renaissance was a lone bright spot.  Just as he had throughout his eighteen years in the league, Moose toed the rubber every fifth day and did his unwavering best to give his team a chance to win.  Knowing that his contract expired at the end of the season, Mussina could have used this resurgence to squeak another one or two years’ pay from the Yankees.  He could have hung on for Jake Taylor’s “one more good year in the sun.”  But he didn’t.  Instead, he hung ‘em up.

Somewhere out there, a Foot Locker outlet has a clearance rack full of jerseys that show that Jerry Rice played for the Seahawks, Michael Jordan for the Wizards, and Wade Boggs for the Devil Rays.  These jerseys are cultural artifacts, proving the unwillingness of athletes to read the writing on the wall.  Far be it for me to suggest when elite athletes should give up their livelihood.  People like Jordan andRice performed for so long at a level that was better than 99.9% of the population that they, and only they, should make the ultimate decision on their retirements.  Instead of leaving us with images akin to that of Jerry Rice dropping a quick slant over the middle or Michael Jordan missing that dunk in his last All-Star game, the last picture of Mike Mussina will always be him standing on the infield of Fenway Park, celebrating the first 20 win season of his career.  Mike Mussina retired in the same way he played the game: victoriously and without fanfare.