sportsjabber.net

There are a number of ways an all-time great can end his career. For the tiny minority who spent their entire playing lives with one team, the end is obvious - they’ll finish with that team. For every Cal Ripken or Tony Gwynn, though, there are more great players who went away from their original team at some point in their careers. Some, like Jim Thome just now to the Cleveland Indians, return from whence they came.

Not all these returns are the same, however. There are, by my count, seven different variations. In the spirit of Ocean’s 13 in which Danny Ocean and his crew of grifters gave names to cons (”the Irwin Allen”) and to giving someone another shot (”the Billy Martin”), I’ve given each one of these scenarios a name after one of the players who lived that particular scenario.

The Ducky Medwick

In the Ducky Medwick, a player returns to his team of origin and plays one or two seasons to finish out his career. It’s the ultimate swan song. Nostalgia reigns. Grown men weep and small children smile although they’re not quite sure why because they weren’t born when this player was originally with their favorite team. When done right, it can be the perfect capper on a Hall of Fame career. Medwick was traded to the Dodgers in 1940 after eight-plus seasons with the Cardinals. After that, he played for the Giants and Braves and the Dodgers again. (He also got cut by the Browns.) Finally, in 1947, the Cardinals signed him and he got another 186 plate appearances for them over the next two seasons.

With Thome having turned 41 on Saturday, the Ducky Medwick seems like the most likely scenario for him, although, if things go really well and he can maintain that 120 OPS+ he’s been sporting the past few years, his Ducky Medwick could turn into a Willie McCovey.

Other notable practitioners of the Ducky Medwick: Gary Carter, Don Sutton, Phil Niekro, Reggie Jackson, Pete Alexander