John Olerud has retired from baseball
Baseball Musings reports that John Olerud has retired from Major League Baseball. I always thought that he was underrated as a hitter because he didn’t have much power for a first baseman and he never lived up to his massive 1993 season. But he was a very consistent hitter over his career, even without the home runs. His career on-base percentage is 398, which is better than Ichiro!’s number as a major leaguer. He could probably squeeze another year or two as a left-handed bat of some rich team’s bench and do very well. In fact, if he were to join the Mariners squad today, he’d probably be the fourth-best hitter on the team!
He was one of my favorite baseball players over his career. He was at W.S.U. when I was there and a good friend of mine shared a lab session with him. My buddy went with several other students to visit Olerud on the hospital when he had has aneurysm and everyone was certain that he would die, so when he did not die, I thought “this guy needs to be a star and I will follow his progress.” And I did until today.
He was the best hitter and the best pitcher on a very good W.S.U. baseball team that year and by all accounts he was a great guy. Buffoons like Carl Everett are tolerable in major league baseball because guys like John Olerud play alongside them. Now I need to go find another very good player to root for. Any suggestions?
