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Freddy Sanchez was apparently not already retired

I'm surprised too

By Doug Bruzzone
He hit that ball so hard, the ball sure wanted to retire. Hey-o!
He hit that ball so hard, the ball sure wanted to retire. Hey-o!
Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images

It's a slow time for Giants news.

Audience: How slow is it?

No...no, I wasn't doing a thing, I was just...saying. It's slow now. We're at the point of the offseason where the Giants have just a left field-shaped hole to fill without much money to fill it, and for all we know the most likely option is Godot. And that isn't to say there's no news! I mean, just yesterday, this little bit of magic hit Twitter:

Wait, that was the wrong tweet. Well, it was the right tweet in the sense that everyone who hadn't seen it before needed to see it, and those of you who had seen it needed to see it again, but I guess it wasn't "technically" a Giants-related news story.

No, there were a couple Giants tidbits, both ably noted in the Giant Splash section of this website by Jeremy F. Koo. The first was about Bruce Bochy buying a World Series trophy for ex-third base coach and current good dude Tim Flannery, and the second was about Freddy Sanchez officially announcing his retirement.

Freddy Sanchez hasn't played in a major league game in four and a half years. In 2012, he tried to come back, even playing in three rehab games with San Jose (here is video of him running sprints, because I like to deliver high quality important #content), but couldn't make his body cooperate, and that year he would appear in San Francisco only as a ghost during the playoffs:

freddy sanchez ghost

In 2013, he was looking to make a comeback. That article is full of delightful optimism from the Sanchez camp, but this is probably the best part:

Sanchez’s "dream situation" would be to re-sign with the Giants, but they have no interest on a guaranteed deal. They also are satisfied with the backup infield candidates in camp, including Wilson Valdez, Tony Abreu and Kensuke Tanaka. Minor leaguers Nick Noonan and Brock Bond will get a long look, too.

Tony Abreu! Kensuke Tanaka! Nick Noonan! It's probably not a stretch to say that a healthy Freddy Sanchez would have been an upgrade over any of them. At the time, Jerry Crasnick even reported that Freddy was "drawing heavy interest" and that his agent said 20 teams had asked to see his medicals. But none of them signed him, and then later in 2013, we got a case of Classic Freddy, and not in the good, three doubles in the World Series way.

(This article is about his entire baseball career, from high school up through the end in the majors, and it's good, and you should read it, by the way)

"It was all planned that after the Fourth of July weekend that year I was headed to the Giants facility to work out for them," Sanchez said. "My buddy asked me to come and play in a dodge ball tournament with him. I kid you not, I was playing in the dodge ball tournament and I dislocate my shoulder again. This happens be just a few days before I’m supposed to be at the Giants facility on Monday so I can make my comeback.

"I’m literally in the ER on the weekend and I look at my wife and I tell her ‘OK, someone from up above is telling me that I’m done.’ That was when I officially retired, right there."

But, funny story, he didn't officially retire! Here's Chris Cotillo in January of 2014 reporting that very fact:

Of course, he didn't play in the majors that year, and even though the Contra Costa Times reported that he was hoping to make a comeback during 2015, he couldn't make it work then either. In the end, Freddy's body just wasn't up to the challenge of continuing to play baseball. He spent years trying his ass off, and I don't mean that literally, though considering his fragility in later years, I might mean that literally. But that doesn't take away from the effort. Good effort, Freddy. Good career.

And now, to take you out, a funny GIF:

oh freddy

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