New York Yankees think Andy Pettitte is “done for good”

While trying to improve a rotation that has consistently been top-heavy the last number of seasons, the New York Yankees have always seemed to have veteran Andy Pettitte as a fallback option. Throwing his hat in the ring for “number of retirements that weren’t real,” Pettitte returned on more than one occasion and somehow continued to pitch well.

Faced with another off-season in which they need help in the rotation, the Yankees will not be able to turn to Pettitte again. Or at least that’s what Joel Sherman writes for the New York Post:

"The Yankees need a high-end starting pitcher desperately. Andy Pettitte has come out of retirement once before.So would the Yankees — in their time of need — call to see if the left-hander had any interest in coming out of retirement once again?‘He has shut it down for good,’ general manager Brian Cashman said Friday. ‘That door is closed.'”"

Besides the baseball reasons that Pettitte is probably wise to stay retired, it is hard to imagine him ever coming back after the great moments he and the Yankees enjoyed at the end of last season. There was he and Derek Jeter walking to the mound to remove Mariano Rivera in his final game, and then there was Pettitte getting to pitch his final game in his hometown of Houston.

Those kinds of tidy endings don’t happen often in sports, so here’s hoping Pettitte is truly planning to leave it be.