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Me and Julio, Down At The BallparkMay 7th, 2008
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So, Julio Franco finally retired, eh? Well, there’s only one way you can really describe him now: Quitter.
Okay, maybe not. This week, Julio retired at the age of 47, 50, or 54, depending on which baseball card and/or birth certificate you checked. I remember my grandfather telling stories of seeing Franco hit when he was just a kid. And of course, there are a lot of teams out there that can put claim on Julio: Tampa, the Mets, Atlanta, Milwaukee, the White Sox, Cleveland, and the Phillies, not to mention teams in Japan, Mexico, South Korea, and the Ottoman Empire.
But in my heart, he’ll always be a Ranger. Franco came to Texas at the league meetings in December of 1989. In the span of just a few days, the completely unremarkable losers that we had all known as the Texas Rangers were totally rebuilt, becoming a much, much more interesting bunch of losers. 42-year-old legend in the making Nolan Ryan was signed from Houston. Raffy Palmeiro was aquired from the Cubs. And Texas traded local hero Pete O’Brien along with Oddibe McDowell and Jerry Browne to the Indians for their new 2nd baseman. Franco went on to win the All-Star Game MVP in 1990, lead the league in batting average in 1991, and provoke hundreds of thousands of back injuries in the Dallas-Fort Worth area as impressionable children tried to imitate his batting stance.
The stance is what remains clearestin my mind’s eye. Knees together, hands held over his head, bat slung horizontally off in the direction of the nearest nacho stand, menacingly waving back and forth. I would compare it to a young jedi who didn’t want to stop training no matter how bad he had to go to the bathroom, but the man played in the majors for 26 years, so maybe we’ll cut him a little slack. And then, after all of that, Franco would take the first pitch, every time. (Well, almost every time. Occassionally, he’d take a rip and scare some pitcher who knew that Franco wasn’t going to swing at the first pitch.)
Wikipedia, the Earth’s own Hitchhikers Guide, tells us that in 2006, Julio Franco became the oldest pinch runner in baseball history. It sadly does not report what Carlos Delgado thought when he was lifted so that a possibly 47-year-old man could run for him.
It always made me happy when I’d see Francobouncing off the bench for the Mets or the Braves in the last few years. He left Texas 14 years ago, and he was old when he left. I’ve always thought that I can’t possibly be old yet: Julio Franco is still playing ball.
Thanks, Julio. Thanks for sticking around…
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