After sixteen seasons and all but three with the New York Yankees, starting pitcher Andy Pettitte has decided to retire. It was unclear, however, why has he decided to end his baseball career.
Pettitte had told the Yankees, after they had lost the American League Championship to the Texas Rangers that they should not count on him to return. He had waited more than three months to make it official, saying that making the decision was difficult. He has suffered many injuries over the years, including a major elbow injury in 2003 and a groin injury that knocked him out for most of the 2010 season. The idea that he might have to repeat rehabilitation wasn’t very appealing to him and, as a baseball player, he knew that his career came with suffering injuries, however, he wasn’t ready to suffer another long term injury. His health, however, wasn’t the real reason why he decided to retire.
He believes that he is needed more at home than on the pitching mound for the Yankees. His home is in Deer Park, Texas and not being there with his family was hard. He knows that the Yankees desperately need him especially after Cliff Lee turned them down and the pitching rotation for the team is being worked on. He was possibly going to hold off retirement for another year in order to help out the Yankees in their pitching rotation, but he felt the major factor that contributed to his retirement was pressure. At his news conference, New York Times reported that he said, “I felt a great tremendous amount of pressure and I do not like disappointing people.” At first, when he had some time alone, he thought, “I’m going to play. The fans, the Yankees, need me to play. My wife supports it and my kids support it too. I’m going to play”. At the press conference of his retirement though, he said “When I dug deep down and did some soul-searching, I don’t know how to explain it. It wasn’t there.” For a while, he was unsure what he was going to do or what he will do next but he decided he will coach his son’s Little League, watch his daughter play volleyball and take a few summer vacations.
“My arm feels great, my body feels great,” Pettitte said. “I’ve been working out extremely hard for about the last three and a half weeks, and I know that my body would get to where it needs to be. But my heart’s not where it needs to be.” But will he ever come back to pitch? At his retirement press conference, he replied, “Never say never”. He was too honest to say that he will know for certain how he will feel a year from now. But for now, goodbye to the sixteen season baseball pitcher.