After finally conceding that his phone wasn't going to ring with any job offers, Magglio Ordonez is calling it a career. The 38-year-old Venezuelan plans to announce his retirement at Comerica Park in a ceremony the Tigers will hold before Sunday's game.
The team and location make sense. Ordonez spent the final seven seasons of his 15-year career wearing the olde English 'D' and the Tigers provided him a haven to pad his bank account after the Chicago White Sox refused to roll the dice on his injury-prone body after the 2004 season.
In exchange, Ordonez turned a radical knee therapy into some great play for Jim Leyland and Co. Though he was well short of a Hall of Fame career and probably doesn't qualify for the fictional "Hall of The Very Good" either, Ordonez experienced the next best thing for a ballplayer: Making a boatload of money ($133.4 million in career earnings, according to baseball-reference) while posting enough memorable stats and moments to become a beloved member of Detroit Tigers history.
During his time with the Tigers, Ordonez ...
• ... made the All-Star team in 2006 and 2007.
• ... won the 2007 American League batting title with a .363 average, beating Ichiro (.351) by over 10 points and becoming the first Tiger to record the honor since Norm Cash finished with the AL's top average in 1961. Ordonez placed second to A-Rod in the AL MVP voting that year.
• ... hit two homers in the same inning in a game against Oakland on Aug. 12, 2007 and is one of only 55 players in baseball history to achieve the feat.
• ... authored one of the most memorable moments in recent Tigers history, putting the Tigers back in the World Series for the first time in 22 years with a three-run homer that finished off a sweep of the Oakland A's in the 2006 ALCS.
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