Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter officially retires from baseball
By Brad Rowland
It has been weeks since the initial word of Chris Carpenter’s pending retirement from baseball leaked out, but on Wednesday, the St. Louis Cardinals formally announced the end of his long career.
General Manager John Mozeliak announces Chris Carpenter's retirement from MLB. "He'll go down as one of the greatest we've ever had."
— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) November 20, 2013
Because of the previous indications, this comes as no surprise, but Carpenter is every bit deserving of a large send-off from the team that he excelled with for so many years. As a member of the Cardinals, the 38-year-old pitcher went 95-44 with a 3.07 ERA in 197 starts, and he was the winner of the 2005 NL Cy Young Award as the league’s top pitcher.
Carpenter’s overall numbers (he began his career with Toronto) are excellent (144 wins, 3.76 ERA), and while he wasn’t quite good enough to garner serious Hall of Fame consideration, he’ll be regarded as one of the better pitchers of the last 15 years or so. It’s a shame that he was only able to make 332 starts over a 15-year period due to injury, but that didn’t stop him from making a serious impression.
We will leave you with a quote from Bill Dewitt, Jr., who is the CEO of the Cardinals, that says it all about his service in St. Louis.
"“We congratulate [Carpenter] on a tremendous career & thank him for his many contributions to the Cardinals tradition.”"
Enjoy your retirement, Chris. It was well-earned.