Pudge Rodriguez comes back to the Rangers

[cjclong]

The Rangers brought Ivan Rodriguez back in a trade with Houston yesterday. It used to be that players like Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Ernie Banks, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle played their entire career with one team. That is so rare now with Cal Ripken jr being an exception. I think its great that Ken Griffey, jr is finishing up his career with the Mariners and I hope Pudge gets to finish his with the Rangers. How many star baseball players can you think of that played all their career with one team?

[BorchertField]

Robin Yount considered leaving the Brewers as a free agent in the early 1990s, but Bud Selig talked him into staying, reportedly using just that argument.

[BorchertField]

Thinking about it, the Yankees have a few superstars on the current roster who have spent their entire career in pinstripes: Posada, Jeter and Rivera.

Obviously, with their payroll they have an advantage in being able to keep players.

[suicide_squeeze]

The Rangers brought Ivan Rodriguez back in a trade with Houston yesterday. It used to be that players like Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Ernie Banks, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle played their entire career with one team. That is so rare now with Cal Ripken jr being an exception. I think its great that Ken Griffey, jr is finishing up his career with the Mariners and I hope Pudge gets to finish his with the Rangers. How many star baseball players can you think of that played all their career with one team?

cjclong,

I totally agree with your point. It's a wonderful thing in sports when a star chooses to stay with a team he started with, and sticks it out throughout his entire career, no matter what happens.

Tony Gwynn comes to mind.

But I have to say, and I apologize up front if you are a Pudge fan....Pudge Rodriguez was one of the biggest PED abusers the game has seen, so I am completely unenthused about his career. In fact, I can't wait to get his genetically altered facial features out of the game forever. He is a freak. He has pumped more chemicals into his veins than anyone, with the possible exception of Canseco.

We'll never know how great of a catcher he would have been had he played the game clean. That's the biggest tragedy of these PED abusers....they muck up the history of the game because their career numbers are inflated garbage. He was always a fairly darn good defensive catcher, but again, when you never have a "sore arm" or a "down day", and your legs are always "PED fresh"......who at the pro level wouldn't be?

[suave1477]

How many star baseball players can you think of that played all their career with one team?

Actually there is quite a few

Bernie Williams
Jim Palmer
John Smoltz - 20 years with the braves
Albert Pujols - has 9 years so far and I can't imagine him going anywhere else
Ichiro Suzuki
Lance Berkman
Chipper Jones
Tony Gwynn
George Brett
Craig Biigio

These are just to name a few

[cjclong]

Squeeze, you are obviously one of those who is very upset by the question of PED as is your right. I have made the argument in the past that it just evened it out for Pudge when he was catching games day after day in 100 degree heat in Texas in the summer (I went to the Rangers Red Sox game Saturday and at 7pm it started out at 96 degrees and never got below 92) while guys in the northeast played in much cooler tempreatures all summer. I know you won't buy into that. I wish the PED thing had never happened. But a lot of the people who are angry about PED's act as if someone like me who was a marginal athlete at best would be in the majors and breaking the home run record if I had just taken steroids. I think Bonds is a good example, he was on his way the HOF in the years when we are reasonably sure he was not taking PED's The most you can say for steroids is they made good players even better. They did not turn marginal players into supestars. One thing I will take issue with you on, I have mever heard anyone say steroids would keep a player from having an injured arm. As a matter of fact, they seem to have shorted some players careers because the muscle bulid up led to injuries. I am not going to argue that Pudge didn't take steroids, although you are stating as a fact he did without definitive proof. I thnk Pudge and ARod are HOF players and any PED's only added morginally to their numbers. And I would say the same thing about Manny Ramierz numbers, even though he is a player I am not fornd of for reasons that have nothing to do with PED allegations.

[cjclong]

Suave, you are right that those players and others have been with one team through all their careers. And it would be nice if it stays that way. (I hope Jeter and Rivera finish with the Yankees). But while we think of Willie Mays as a Giant he technically finished with the Mets. I just think it great if a player can stay with one team the whole time, not just most of it.

[MiLe HigH]

Actually there is quite a few

Bernie Williams
Jim Palmer
John Smoltz - 20 years with the braves
Albert Pujols - has 9 years so far and I can't imagine him going anywhere else
Ichiro Suzuki
Lance Berkman
Chipper Jones
Tony Gwynn
George Brett
Craig Biigio

These are just to name a few

Todd Helton ....just had to throw him in there

[Fraudfinder!!]

Yaz, Jim Rice, Dwight Evans......

[Fraudfinder!!]

Actually as I think of my last post Dewey Evans played a very short time for Baltimore......