Retirement in baseball is tricky these days.  Guys have trouble breaking away from the game, and with the shallow depth as far as hitting goes–and third base specifically–teams are hungrier than ever to have a proven commodity come back.

So naturally, people were calling Chipper Jones to find out if he would be available for the 2013 season, just weeks after Jones made it official that he would be back for no seasons ever again.  And he was forced to reiterate that yes, 2013 is one of the seasons in question.

Chipper’s agent BB Abbott said several teams have called on Chipper but #Yankees didnt. Wouldn’t say which teams have. Staying retired, tho.

— Mark Hale (@HaleMark) January 7, 2013

Could the Phillies have been one of those phone calls?  Yes.  Our sources here are telling us that the team does still have phones.  For more intimate calls, Ruben will appear at a player’s window and hurl rocks.

But it seems that Chipper has been pretty busy as a retired middle-aged man, scoffing at needing the directions for a basketball hoop, then wordlessly shaking his head as he regretted throwing them away.

What’s wrong with this pic folks? Never said I was the sharpest tool in the shed. Damn ladder!!! Lol twitter.com/RealCJ10/statu…

— Chipper Jones (@RealCJ10) December 27, 2012

So it seems Jones will stay retired, and turn down that little voice in retired athletes’ heads that tells them that coming back for one year to play adequately at best  in a different uniform won’t at all sully their legacy.

[Excuses]

[Scorn]

[Inaccessibility]

[Blame]

[Finger-pointing]

[Censorship]

[Humiliation]

Chipper Jones is also laughing at the Nationals. Brad Penner-US PRESSWIRE

Atlanta Braves

It was a refreshingly justified end for Chipper Jones, as the Braves went down in their Wild Card elimination game amidst a hail of garbage.  GM Frank Wren called it “a harsh reality,” but the rest of us knew what it really was: incredibly satisfying.

This year marks the most amount of teams in the post season that I am actively rooting against–Nationals, Braves, Yankees, Giants, Cardinals (this one’s tough because they’re playing the Nationals)–but the Braves’ disappearance has the added bonus of Chipper Jones being gone forever, so that day was a good one.

Of course, had the controversial “infield fly” call been at a Phillies playoff elimination game, I am inconsolable right now.  So in a way there is a twinge of sympathy here.  And you always love, as an angry fan, being vindicated by one of the players.  Objective columnists weighing in to tell emotionally affected fans to shut up is pretty pompous and ignorant, given everything that was on the line and the frequent critique of Atlanta’s fanbase as detached and uncaring.

So as a Phillies fan, the Braves and Chipper are gone, which is nice, but also as a Phillies fan, I respect their newfound capacity for outwardly displayed frustration.  It’s not something you want to see, but it is something you want to feel.

I feel weird.

Miami Marlins

“The Miami Marlins have this unique penchant for taking every visual representation of themselves and turning it into some awful amalgamation of clashing neon colors and disfigured shapes.”

–Jordan Rabinowitz, Sports Grid

Yes, the Marlins are creating visual images again, and yes, they are pretty awful, again.  This time, it isn’t a home run sculpture or baseball team, it’s a patch designed to celebrate the franchise’s 20th year.  So far, it’s the first major change the Fish have undergone.  Which is odd.

They have a whole offseason to fire or not fire Ozzie Guillen and then definitely not do anything involving players and think about all the money they used to have.  In the mean time, it makes sense for them to have an arts and crafts time in order to remind people that not only have their already been two decades of baseball in Miami, but they have two World Series titles.  Which you may remember is the same number of titles as another NL East team, only that one has existed for over 100 years.  So.

That’s depressing.

New York Mets

Man EVERYBODY’s having a laugh! Brad Penner-US PRESSWIRE

If you took radio call-in shows and internet comment sections as legitimate news feeds, you’d know by now that the Phillies had signed David Wright, solving their third base problems and for some reason convincing him to play for a totally affordable amount of money.

Shockingly enough, in reality, the Mets would like to hold onto their star player.  They’d also like to see Cy Young candidate R.A. Dickey stay in a Mets uniform for some reason.  It’s almost as if they want their good players to still be on the team and not trade them for nothing at all.

Wright’s rumored negotiations are set to begin at $100 million, and could begin before the World Series.  Dickey, meanwhile, will undergo surgery on his abdomen for a  strained muscle he’d pitched through for part of the season.  Well, why wouldn’t Dickey have an added source of stress and still be a frontrunner for “Best Pitcher in the League Award?”  The man is a human knuckleball.

There’s no telling when the Mets will be legitimate contenders again.  Probably not in 2013.  But anywhere they’re going to start would have to include Wright and Dickey, their two best players, and a deal to keep them both in Flushing for years to come would be an injection of enthusiasm for a crippled fanbase.

Unless they wanted to give up Wright for like a bat or something.  I mean, what’s so hard to understand about baseball negotiating?  The Phillies need a third base man, and Wright is a great one.  Let’s take him.

Easy.  Done.

Jake Roth-US PRESSWIRE

Chipper Jones arrives in Philadelphia for hopefully the last time today, setting off a weekend of things he will do for the last time in Philadelphia, hopefully.

Chipper Jones, a grown man named “Chipper,” is a 17-year vet of the game, having played all of his career in Atlanta.  Attending Bolles School in Jacksonville, FL as a teenager, Chipper watched as his team incompetently dropped a championship game in the final innings to close out his senior year.  Afterward, being a natural quitter, he gave up on his dreams of being a pitcher despite 100 strikeouts and an ERA under 1.00.

The first overall draft pick in 1990, Chipper moved swiftly through the ranks of the Braves’ farm system, in which like 3/4 of the teams are called “the Braves.”  His immaturity showed as he somehow got involved in a benches-clearing fracas that also included Manny Ramirez and somehow Jim Thome.

#Phillies retirement gift to Chipper Jones should be a box filled with individual bags of dicks, which he is forced to eat. #GoodbyeChipper

— The Good Phight (@TheGoodPhight) September 21, 2012

Realizing that Thome was actually a positive influence on the game, Jones begged for forgiveness by burrowing up into Thome’s colon for the remainder of his career, taking any opportunity he could to remind everyone that they were friends and should be compared to each other.

After cheating on his wife for a year and a half with a Hooters waitress and producing a child, Chipper got divorced in 1997.  His hobbies include deer hunting, releasing wine to benefit children with disabilities, and knowing what today’s happy hour specials are at Hooters.

@thegoodphight I think like a flaming bag of dog poo for every year of his career is appropriate.

— Estebomb (@Estebomb) September 21, 2012

As he’s traveled from stadium to stadium on his “…for the last time ” tour, teams have handed over parting gifts while giving Chipper the opportunity to tip his cap to a crowd that probably hates him.

We had hoped the Phillies would avoid such tripe, but it seems that they have organized some kind of pre-game thing involving Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley.  Having watched the same scenario unfold last year with Bobby Cox, it seems the Braves won’t be happy until every season is a forced universal celebration of one of their sniveling icons.

The Phillies should get Chipper Jones a baseball signed by the team. And it should be delivered to his ribs.

— Dash Treyhorn (@DashTreyhorn) September 21, 2012

So today, instead of celebrating something honorable like the anniversary of Steve Carlton surpassing Bob Gibson’s NL record for career strikeouts with a 12-K performance against the Expos in 1981, we “celebrate” the final appearance of a man in Philadelphia who has never been in a Phillies uniform and has actively worked against everyone who has been for the last 17 years.

Cheers.