![]() ![]() He’s now the fourth-ever FSU player to have their baseball jersey retired, joining Dick Howser, J.D. At Florida State, where he holds the highest batting average in school history, he won the 2008 Golden Spikes Award, Dick Howser Award, Brooks Wallace Award, Johnny Bench Award and Rawlings Glove Award and was named Player of the Year by Baseball America, Collegiate Baseball, and ABCA. He was the 2010 NL Rookie of the year, 2012 NL MVP, won four Silver Slugger Awards and won Golden Glove. Posey, who played in Tallahassee from 2006 to 2008, went on become a three-time World Series champion with the San Francisco Giants over the course of a 12-year career. He was more important than he’ll ever know.Florida State baseball will retire the jersey of Buster Posey, a two-time All-American in Tallahassee and arguably the greatest player in the history of Seminoles baseball. There will never be another Giant like Buster Posey. “You’re not as important as you think you are,” he said.įor a Giants team that was lost without him in 2020 and now loses its clubhouse leader, the backbone of its pitching staff and defense, and the bat in the heart of its order - for the fans who, justly, feel like a member of their spring, summer, and fall family is leaving - Posey couldn’t be more incorrect. You’d have thought he was just a utility infielder. Yet with his final words as a Giants player, he couldn’t have been more humble. He leaves as a three-time champion, a Rookie of the Year, an MVP, a superstar, and a San Francisco and Bay Area icon. The team will have a role for him in the near future - one of those retainer gigs that so many other departing Giants have taken on their way out the door. Posey said the family will move back to his native Georgia eventually. “All of us who have been around the game for a long time - unfortunately you do see players who get to the end of their career, and the game does get hard. “I think that’s important to me,” Posey said. No, Posey will go out the same way he came in: great. ![]() ![]() He passed up a $20-million option that the Giants were due to exercise this weekend. “I truly felt like I became a Giant.”Īnd in the years to come, when we look back on Posey’s great career, I believe we’ll be thankful that he saw it fit to exit in this manner - that he didn’t play through the pain, putting his love of the game aside for the cash that comes with it. “There’s nothing else that anyone could have done to make me feel more comfortable,” he said. Three years later, that vision led to 107 wins and a wholly unexpected division title.īut it was that initial acceptance that resonated with Zaidi. After all, the Giants were Posey’s team and Zaidi was an outsider. Posey feeling out the new boss a bit, Zaidi sharing his vision for the team. Not just with a text message saying “congrats,” but with a request to meet.Ī few days later, the two spent hours in a backroom of Oracle Park. “It was a real adjustment period for me,” he said. Zaidi confessed that he was “rattled” those early days on the job. His analytical background, his Dodgers roots, and, sadly, the fact that Zaidi was baseball’s first Muslim team president, did not make his welcome to the Bay Area warm. He was a numbers guy taking over a team that was run in an old-school way. Remember, Zaidi came to the Giants from the Dodgers. SF Giants’ first-round pick Reggie Crawford talks return from Tommy John, two-way plans He shared the story of their first meeting. Zaidi, who only had a short professional relationship with Posey, seemed the most moved by the catcher’s retirement. ![]() Not only was he a great player (and yet, still, underrated), he led off the diamond as well. There’s no question Posey was the best of the best. More important was his desire to spend more time with his wife, his four children, and his extended family. Ultimately for the Giants’ catcher, the pain that came with being behind the plate for more than a decade was a big part of the decision. Yes, the man we saw behind and at the plate for years was anything but an artificial character. He was committed to thanking everyone he could. There was a bit of early emotion, but otherwise, Posey was deliberate in announcing a decision he made months ago but finalized only days ago. He was emotional but steady in his final goodbye. That’s part of the reason I feel at peace with my decision,” Posey said Thursday. And even as he posted an All-Star campaign - the seventh of his career - and led the Giants to a franchise-record 107 wins, he never wavered in his decision. ![]()
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