Prince Fielder has served the Major League Baseball community with 12 years of playing time. He is only 32 years old. Starting out at the Milwaukee Brewers in 2005 at the age of 21, he then went to the Detroit Tigers in the 2012 season, and landed in Texas playing for the Rangers until now.
Now, as a lifetime St. Louis Cardinals fan, I do not particularly like good players of teams in our division. Milwaukee is in our division, and for those seasons of Prince playing third base, he was their main resource for power at the plate. Excluding his rookie season, he never played less than 157 games of the 162 in a season. He held a batting average of .283 for 7 seasons at Milwaukee with a total of 233 home runs.
I specify when he played for Milwaukee because this has been the majority of his 12-year career. Fielder was always the player for our hometown St. Louis Cardinals to look out for. When Prince made contact, you knew. If you couldn’t hear it, you’d see it on the highlight reel.
I know he’s a good guy, a very sportsmanlike player and a funny one on the field, but I still wasn’t very fond of him as a competitor due to his strength and skill to beat the Cards.
However, last week Fielder caught some awful news from his doctors that shocked all of MLB’s followers and players. He was told by the doctors that due to two spinal fusions in his neck, he is not able to play baseball any longer.
In the abrupt press meeting he had to deliver, put together for the news, he sat next to his long time agent and his two sons. His whole Texas Rangers team was in the audience awaiting the news that they did not even know yet, along with reporters and close friends and family.
Now, I personally don’t like press interviews, because it mostly consists of the press asking ridiculous questions that try to get more juicy topics out of the athlete. However, this is different. This meeting was a goodbye to baseball for Prince. How do you say goodbye to a career that should last at least 10 more years?
The one-liner that not only dragged tears out of Prince as he said it, but all of us as well: “The doctors told me I can’t play baseball anymore."
Hearing a 32-year-old beast of a man say that with tears running down his face will get anyone who has a heart.
No, nobody’s dying or has cancer, like the typical tribute article. I’m sure lots of you will think this is ridiculous, especially if you don’t follow/appreciate sports.
But just think about this. Fielder was raised watching his dad, Cecil, play MLB baseball. What he calls his playground has remained the same since he was an infant. He reached his dreams, he put in all the years of the most difficult digging. He is in that 1 percent of people who have what it takes to make it to the big leagues. However, surprised with two spinal fusions, there is nothing he can do to keep his dream living on.
This press conference he had – please watch it online – really made me happy to say that it isn’t all about the money for these guys. They compete. They train. Yes, they make lots of money. But they play. This is their lifetime. It takes their whole year, day in and day out, sacrificing so much time away from family.
Baseball was Prince Fielder’s life. Hopefully, he can help out with the staff of the Rangers in Texas until his contract is fulfilled.
Fielder ended his career with the same amount of home runs that his father, Cecil Fielder, accumulated in his career: 319.
He also had over 1,600 hits for his career. If his injuries wouldn’t have stopped him early, he would have been on track for the always desired 3,000 hits.
Not only was Prince a seven-time All-Star for the MLB, but he also was awarded the Hank Aaron award in 2007, the 2011 MVP of the All-Star game and the 2015 American League Comeback Player of the Year.
Prince Fielder, thank you for giving us the pleasure of watching you play baseball.
